


Strawberry Ice Cream (Revamped!!!)

by BanneAncroft69



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Adoption, Baseball Idiots, Best Friends, Bingo, Bubblegum, Cinematic parallels of blondes & brunettes because i'm a slut for symbolism, College, D.E.B.S. References, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Abusive Parents, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, Falling In Love, Fiona Apple - freeform, Happy Ending, Heist, Hotels, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kitchen Sex, Laura Prepon - Freeform, Marriage Proposal, Met Gay-la, Ocean's 8 are a family, Orange is the New Black References, Prison, Tammy Squirts, That 70s Show Reruns, Threesome - F/F/F, and I am here to change that, and then eventually forwardstory, and then middlestory, but first let's wade through all this fucking emotional baggage first, i can give you sexy time, innocent!!! babies!!!, just a fuck ton of backstory, just the slowest fucking burn you ever did see, mentioned abandonment, sexual awakening, the kinky will be gotten, the only crime they committed is not being a canon couple, the word "dyke" but make it fashion, use of the word 'fags' from one queer to another, what happens after the Halal truck, you want sexy time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 60,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25606024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanneAncroft69/pseuds/BanneAncroft69
Summary: A longform story of Lou and Debbie's friendship/relationship over nearly three decades, spanning every chance meeting, proper introduction, canon narrative plotline, and everything in between. There is something here for everyone! xoxoIn my own words, this fic is romantic in a friend-way (and eventually not just in a friend-way;), and focused heavily on playful banter and emotions.
Relationships: Lou Miller/Debbie Ocean
Comments: 61
Kudos: 124





	1. The One With the Home Run

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to my faithful and dedicated readers from the last version of this fic! I think I have cleaned up my act considerably. Fingers crossed I won't have to start all over again. Even though that was all just me. Your feedback makes my day, literally, so the more specific and detailed your comments are the more motivated I am to write! 
> 
> For those who are coming to this story for the first time, I wrote this over the course of summer 2018, just for fun. It got to over 77,000 words before I kind of just gave up. I think I have the solution, and I'd be honoured if you chose to invest in this particular imagining! The title is a line from Counting Crows' "Accidentally In Love". Felt like revisiting these old dames. For my Debbie/Lou shippers out there, I see you and I'm still with you!
> 
> Shoutout to my faithful reader hope_s who played an active role in inspiring me to rework this entirely! It's in a much better place now, so I can't thank you enough. 
> 
> Here's my Pinterest board for this fic: https://www.pinterest.ca/tg3512013/debbie-lou/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1990: Where it all started....

In the summer of 1990, things seemed simple, trivial, and _oh, so boring._ But for fifteen-year-old Deborah Lee Ocean, there was always baseball. For her brother, on the other hand, there were _always_ women. 

“How far away is this place? Are there gonna be any chicks there?”

Debbie rolled her eyes. “It’s at least two hours, you didn’t have to drive me. And I’m fifteen, there probably isn’t gonna be anyone between that age and the ‘mom’ demographic.”

“You say that like the ‘mom’ demographic is off-limits,” Danny argued. 

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that.”

Danny Ocean became Danny Ocean faster than Debbie became Debbie. By the time he was eighteen he already had a reputation with the ladies, fairly decent, and with the teachers, fairly less decent. Debbie had made one friend in middle school, Tammy, but they quickly fell out of touch when Tammy moved away before the ninth grade. Debbie achieved high academic standing in English, Math, and in her extracurriculars, and was the head of the debate team two years running. She worked harder than anybody else, for when you exist in the shadow of your older brother, you have to shine twice as bright. 

Once they got older, their father didn’t like them being home so much, so he enrolled Danny in boxing and Debbie in baseball. Both were sports at which Dennis Ocean had excelled when he was their age.

Before Danny could drive, a car service would take them to practices or games on weekends, otherwise they would tag along to walk with one another during the week. 

It required copious amounts of patience and flexibility, which, thankfully, ran in the family. 

When Danny _finally_ earned his license at eighteen - and a baby blue 1975 Cadillac Eldorado - he drove Debbie to her first away game. She could’ve taken the bus, but how could a fifteen-year-old so desperate to be seen alongside her hero pass up such an opportunity?

She didn’t understand why he even got the car, especially when it was a model from _her_ birth year. Just sibling rivalry, she supposed. Never any logic behind it.

Danny sat in the bleachers with an offensively American hotdog and a pair of sunglasses that aged him at least twenty in douchebag years, and Deb stepped up to bat. 

The stadium hummed with the energy of baseball moms - an entirely different breed of soccer moms - and the pitcher from the opposite team jogged up to her base.

There was natural blonde hair underneath her cap, tied into an innocent ponytail that barely reached her shoulder blades. Though several yards away, Debbie took note of her height, the sheer size of her legs and her powerful feet in a pair of well-loved shoes. _Shit, I bet she’s fast. Why do I have to be first up to bat?_

There was something in the invisible atmosphere around this strange, lanky blonde, likely her own age. Deb’s breath seemed to cease when she saw a pink bubble emerge from her mouth, and was startled when it popped, as if it were right in her face. Though it wasn’t easy to tell, she suspected her eyes were blue. 

The tall girl fiddled with the ball as though it were a part of her.

She wondered why she hadn’t thrown it yet, but Debbie focused closer under her visor and saw that she was watching her just as intently.

Maybe it was her inherent competitive streak, maybe it was her deepening curiousity as her eyes feasted upon someone as tall as she, as _awkward but confident_ as she, as apparently bored with life’s mundane routine as she. But Debbie no longer cared if their team won or lost. Perhaps today she would finally have a home run. 

A voice. “Number eight, just go already!” 

Not the blonde’s. Devastating. But number eight? Sounded promising. 

_Please, not the curveball._

_She’s looking at me, too. Do I have a stain on my pants? Or is she just plotting my downfall?_

She decided against an inventory of grass or dirt stains, for there were more important things to be done.

With her apparently practiced arm, the girl threw the ball. Debbie’s heart stopped when her arms swung, knocking it completely out of the field in one smooth motion before dropping the bat with a resonant _clank_ against the dirt and running for her _life._

She’d never felt so alive. 

The next thing she knew she was covered in dust, sliding into home base, her head spinning as she caught her breath.

Stains wouldn’t be hard to find anymore. 

But she was admittedly distracted for the remainder of the game, every waking moment sneaking glances toward the blonde to make sure she knew where she was at all times. Her fascination with the girl intrigued her as much as the girl herself. 

When it all ended, the players formed two converging lines and shook hands, Debbie purposefully bringing up the rear so as to somehow have a longer connection with the stranger. 

The blonde’s hands were practical, her fingers long, and her handshake firm. Her cap was backwards now, and her forehead slick with sweat. The eye contact was far too short, but Debbie could finally confirm, _her eyes are definitely blue. Blue like the ocean after a storm._

Danny was busy flirting with one of the player’s mothers, so by the time they left the field, many of the cars had already left. Debbie let down her hair to suffer through the thickness in the heat, though the feeling disappeared completely in seconds when she caught a glimpse of the blonde sitting on the curb, her knees awkwardly close to her chest, likely waiting for her ride. But Danny ripped away into the street before Deb could say a word.

She could’ve sworn they caught each other staring. 

It was quiet on the ride home, Debbie letting the weight of the game loss sit with them as a pretend burden. She _had_ hit her first home run, but it wasn’t enough to win. Truthfully, her mind was elsewhere. Danny put the top up, and Debbie spoke before she allowed herself to.

“I think I like girls.”

Danny spilled his overpriced blue Slurpee on his pants, accidentally stalling the car, and she prepared to be yelled at. It’s what her dad would’ve done. Maybe even kick her out of the car. 

But Danny said nothing. 

After a few moments of her chest rising and barely falling at a stop sign, he asked, “Are you saying that because you just lost a baseball game even after the best home run in the history of Little League?”

Debbie shook her head. “She threw me the curveball. I didn’t think I would be able to hit it.”

“I’m telling you, giving baseball bats to a group of fifteen-year-old girls is a recipe for disaster.”

“That’s kind of a douchey, misogynistic thing to say. I bet you call your girlfriend ‘hysterical’ when she gets upset.”

Danny was quiet again.

Debbie rolled her eyes. “Do you?!”

He defended himself. “It was one time! I know not to do that now. We haven’t exactly had a model mother figure.”

“Someday you might get a divorce and your ex-wife is gonna remarry some guy who owns a casino and you’d better hope that you have the balls to try and win her back. Because I won’t be there to give you pointers.”

“Where will you be?”

“Probably running my own jobs. Without your help.”

“Well, fine. I’ve got Rusty, anyway.”

Debbie grimaced. “You know how I feel about Rusty.”

Danny retaliated as though he was wounded. “What’s wrong with Rusty?”

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with him. He’s just greasy and sleazy and he always wants to get his dirty little paws on my tits.”

“Come on, Deb, he’s not that kind of guy.” 

“Oh, sure, like the name ‘Rusty’ is supposed to imply boundless virtue?”

“I don’t see you bringing any of your friends around. I think you’re just jealous that I have a friend who understands me. Someone I don’t have to prove myself to or hide anything from. You and I both know you could definitely use one of those.”

Danny fiddled with the stereo as they barrelled down the highway in the afternoon sun. 

“That’s exactly why I told you,” she said quietly.

He gave no further response, and didn’t object when Debbie sipped at the rest of his Slurpee in silence.

  
  


______________________

  
  
  


Louise Elizabeth June (“Born In September”) Miller hated women named _Christine._

She supposed it hadn’t bothered her, until her dad started fucking one.

Christine’s old car reeked of cheap perfume samples and single-use plastics, and the six minute ride from Lou’s house to the baseball field was too. Fucking. Long. 

Lou popped a stick of bubble gum in her mouth to hopefully mask the smell, the package worn out from being spread over too many months. It had probably expired. If gum ever expired. She supposed it didn’t. Christine scolded her for eating 'that trash'. That only made her want to ingest it more.

Christines talked about the most useless shit. With this one in particular, all conversation came from the “I’m fucking your dad so that makes me your stepmom now” place in her cold, brittle heart.

So when they arrived, Lou just said, “Thanks for the ride, you can just pick me up in an hour,” and slammed the door. 

Lou didn’t like talking about sports, especially in the locker room. She liked playing baseball, she just didn’t see the point in talking about it for fun.

She sat alone on the bench, exactly the way she liked.

No one spoke to her. 

Exactly the way she liked.

She stretched her arms and touched her toes, anticipating when their coach would alert them of the opposing team’s arrival. 

Lou was first up to pitch, and was prepared to do her worst, for she always enjoyed challenging the opposing team in a way that practically classified her as a villain. 

When the batter from the other team - above-average-height with a long, unhinged brunette ponytail as thick as horse hair (but much, much softer, Lou imagined), that practically burst through her ball cap like a blowout - began flourishing the bat in a sort of threatening non-threatening act, Lou suddenly wasn’t thinking about her athletic achievement or lack thereof. The batter’s hands gripped around the hilt of the wood so tightly until Lou found herself wishing, _desperately_ , that she was that bat. 

The blonde swallowed, her mouth suddenly very dry. _I don’t think this is about baseball anymore._

_And why are we looking at each other like this? Have we met?_

Lou blew a flavourless bubble, willing herself to be grounded back into reality by its harsh _pop._

But that didn’t seem to work. 

She wondered why the girl’s gaze seemed so intense, so cutting to the core, and figured the reason was that she was a brunette. And brunettes often had brown eyes. Brown hit differently than plain old blue. 

She also wondered why she quickly found herself having long, detailed, profound conversations with this girl, impaling her on the stakes of her attention. 

But Lou didn’t have any friends like that, especially not any tall ones. 

The twitching electrical buzz in her stomach was definitely coming from the adrenaline of the game.

She composed herself with her strategic grip on the ball, and half-heartedly blew another bubble for comfort. 

_Let’s see if she can handle a curveball. She looks like she can handle anything._

“Number eight, just go already!” Someone. An idiot.

_Shut up. I’m taking my sweet time. Looking at her._

Lou mentally stepped out of her unsteady, nearly six foot tall body, all her focus pin-pointed as her most athletic arm took control. 

And the girl knocked it out of the park. 

The rest of the game was a blur. None of it mattered after _that._

When the game ended, Lou twisted her cap around to allow her pounding forehead room to breathe. The teams exchanged good spirit for the home win, and Lou got increasingly nervous when more and more hands didn’t belong to the brunette. 

Until finally, she felt them, soft and strong, and looked up just in time to see that her eyes were, in fact, as brown as the richest chocolate and the softest, most fertile soil. Fathoms darker than the dirt that covered her.

Lou waited on the curb for Christine to arrive, and when she pulled up twenty minutes late, Lou couldn’t even be mad.

For the first time in what felt like _years_ , she spent an hour finally feeling something other than _boredom,_ and saw the girl’s ponytail get untied as she stepped into a 1975 baby blue Cadillac Eldorado.

Blue was alright. It was a nice car. 

But the colour brown had never been more fascinating. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I don't know why but it all just smelled like the colour brown. Your thoughts?" - Eugene from Tangled


	2. The One With the Cigarette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1993: freshman year of college/university. You decide :)

Danny and Debbie both knew their father had been messing around since the day the housekeeper started on Ocean household payroll. Besides running his elaborate cons, their father spent a lot of time at home fucking other women that weren’t their mother. 

One evening about which the siblings often reminisced was an instance where Mr. Ocean had invited a set of twins to spend the night with him after a particularly lavish cocktail party. It was January 1993, Debbie had just turned eighteen, Danny twenty-one, and their rooms were on either side of the bathroom on the second floor. A perfect trap. 

The twins, likely no older than twenty-five, had insisted on ‘freshening up’ before their scandalous adventure with a wealthy con artist, and headed for the bathroom.

Almost like clockwork, Dennis Ocean’s two children emerged from their bedrooms, causing the twins to stop in their tracks. 

“Do you ladies feel that our father is going to be an adequate lover, or did he just pay you more than your student debt?” Debbie asked in a low purr.

“He has an issue with limp dick,” Danny added, filing his fingernails. “And he thinks the clitoris is a nonprofit organization.”

One of the twins was unabashedly checking Debbie out, while the other responded with her eyes on Danny. “He only paid us for the next three months of rent.”

Debbie clicked her tongue. “So much for getting bang for your buck.” 

Danny rolled his eyes. “My sister and I are willing to offer our services for a much more satisfying result.”

“I don’t know, this seems kind of murdery,” one of the tall, curvy, redheaded twins commented.

Her sister nudged her. “They do kind of look like they know what they’re doing, at least. I’d honestly rather get murdered by them than have to endure three and a half minutes with Pencil Dick downstairs.”

“How do you even know how big his dick is?”

“I have a sixth sense about these things.”

“You picked him.”

“Yeah, but that was before we knew what his kids looked like.”

Debbie continued. “We can have you back out here in five minutes. He’ll just think you were powdering your pretty little noses. If he’s actually enjoyable, you’ll get double what you paid for. If he’s not, you’ll have been satisfied no matter what.”

The girls looked at each other before one of them asked, “Are you both over eighteen?”

Danny and Debbie offered them their ID cards like a well-oiled machine, which they checked. 

Without skipping a beat, the twins separated, one taking Debbie’s extended hand and the other tiptoeing quickly into Danny’s room.

The Ocean children supposed their obsession with working a con began with taking things from their very own father that he didn’t deserve, for in his emotional absence it was almost as though he barely noticed they existed. Together, against their father, they were one Robin Hood. 

It was like taking candy from a baby.

Their current ‘mom’ was the ‘housekeeper’ Dad had ‘hired’ after the ‘split’ from their actual mother, Darlene, when they were both still quite young.

One corner of the staircase in their home was worn, from where Debbie and Danny used to quietly sit and eavesdrop on their father’s meetings in the study. The wood finish was raw and dry, more exhausted than the rest of it. His children would take notes, document conversations with their tape recorders, their malleable brains absorbing everything they could possibly learn about how to run a job - and succeed. Every time their father was arrested, he weaselled his way out of it. More notes. 

But now, three years after the baseball game and douchebag sunglasses, as they drove nearly six hours in the same Cadillac with the top down, it felt as though their partnership was running out of runway.

Their dad had declared himself ‘too busy’ to drive Debbie to university, so the siblings made a day of it. Begrudgingly. 

“Are you gonna miss me?” Danny asked.

Debbie tied her hair back into a neater ponytail, knowing that it would take a severe life threat for her brother to put the roof up, and readjusted her seat. “What do you think?”

Danny leaned on the ledge to his left. “I actually try not to think about it.”

“That’s not always healthy. You may die if you keep that up too long.”

“Then I can blame you for my death.”

“Deal.”

____________

It was _finally_ 1993, and Lou leaned her head against the window in the back of her dad’s beaten-up vomit-coloured 1980 Honda Civic Sedan. She was strategically sitting behind the seat claimed by what was now her dad’s disgustingly rich and delightfully entitled ‘fiancée’. In her head, Lou always pictured the title in quotations because she didn’t see it actually happening. That, or she just didn’t want to see it. They were driving the four elongated hours to deliver her to university, which meant she was on her way to the sweetest freedom she had ever known. She had been counting down the years. 

Her two brothers sat beside her: the youngest, Kurt, intently banging a plastic dinosaur against his own forehead, and Milo, the middle child, air-drumming to what he called the most “epic smash hit in history” in his headphones. It was a Nirvana song that came out at the beginning of the decade that never failed to get them both hyped and out of control. They often played it to spite Christine whenever she played her country music. Theirs was always louder. And it always brought them closer. 

Lou was the drummer for the jazz band in high school, but was often kicked out of practice for getting too improvisational. She performed like a master, had an exceptional sense of rhythm, and therefore was never permanently removed. Her teacher quickly figured out that all Lou needed was the occasional timeout.

Her dad had sensitive hearing, so she was never allowed to have a drum set of her own. Every day she didn’t have baseball, she stayed late after school to practice, then she would skateboard home before it got dark. She made easy friends with the custodians. 

She had the busiest life for a teenager, but she self-identified as clinically _bored._ Most of what she did was just deadweight in her head for survival. 

Their mother died a year after Kurt was born, when Lou was only thirteen. Dad had been quick to settle down with somebody else much younger, Christine, since his own daughter certainly was deemed “unfit” to be a mother figure. The next four years went by in a dolly zoom format. Lou took on the mothering role for Milo, with very little help from their father except being a male power figure that Lou certainly didn’t need, and a person who would scar her brother deeply if she didn’t protect him with her life.

In those four years, Lou learned that she actually quite liked being relied on. But the possibility of having her own children seemed foreign, and she wasn’t sure what kind of a woman she wanted to be. 

She did quite a lot of thinking, eventually figuring out how to fraternize with the senior citizens at Bingo night, earning their trust as a young, innocent, motherless teenager with a knack for business, leading to her being a pro at rigging the game. She held the sympathy card, and she played it well.

When her father had been drinking too much, she’d wait until he and Christine were asleep before she watered down his liquor, stashing the rest. He would buy more in advance, but before he could get into it she’d replace it with what she had watered down, and sold his brand new bottles to her classmates. She certainly didn’t inherit her eye for detail from her father.

Lou purposefully went against the grain with what she wore, the homework she completed ahead of time, and her pure genius, so as to distract from her thriving underground hustle. She was a good student, if only she’d looked the part. She graduated on account of her skills in people, math, and culinary arts, which mercifully outweighed her lack of effort in everything else academic.

Perhaps it was thanks to her smooth, professional nature that she never got caught. It gave her a high that seemed to last forever, and carried her through what would later be labelled as the worst years of her life. But that kind of life got lonely, fast. 

In the car, Lou distracted herself and tuned into her own disquieting mind, looking out the window as the sun beamed against her face. 

Milo’s elbows seemed to be having an impossible time not hitting her in the throws of his music. She liked that he was passionate, but she was forming bruises, and the car was cramped.

She elbowed him back. “For Christ’s sake, Milo, less elbow and more wrist.”

Her father spoke up firmly from the driver’s seat. “Louise, don’t talk to your brother that way. I didn’t raise you to say shit like that.” 

Lou scowled, hunching down lower in her seat and putting her clown feet up wherever they could fit. 

“It’s Lou,” she mumbled.

Dad’s ‘fiancée’ took it upon herself to comment, _again_. “‘Lou’ is a boy’s name. Boys aren’t going to like you if you have a name like ‘Lou’. I think ‘Louise’ is just fine.” 

Lou laughed to herself and looked at Milo, who was too lost in his own world to hear anything, but if he had, they would have been in on the same joke. And that was enough for her. 

A year before, when Lou was sixteen, Milo, then thirteen, had walked in on her and one of her high school friends fooling around in her bedroom. The girl panicked and left, and Lou didn’t let Milo leave her sight once she was gone. She pinned him against the wall, eyes brimming with tears and a trembling voice filled with terror. Everything she had worked so hard to hide was now in complete jeopardy, and for the first time in her life, Lou was scared shitless. No amount of illegal business could’ve frightened her as much as her own identity. 

Milo was the first and only person she had told, after knowing herself since fourteen, when she’d ventured into the most exciting game of baseball she’d ever played. She trusted in Milo and only Milo. He was her best friend in their broken-and-barely-taped-back-together youth.

And now Dad was ‘engaged’ to Christine after knocking her up, and was going to unconsciously replace his firstborn daughter with a whole new string of genetics. At least that’s how his already existing children saw it.

Lou was now registered to study business and hospitality, fields that Christine had frequently tried to convince everyone, including Lou herself, that she was not smart enough to study successfully. It gave Lou great joy knowing just how wrong Christine could - and would - be proven. 

When they finally arrived at the campus, Lou’s insides churned with the thrill and desperate urge to be on her own that toppled over its own feet, far ahead of her own capabilities. 

The five of them got out of the car in front of Lou’s residence and started unloading her bags. 

When she had a moment with her brothers, she picked up Kurt and he wrapped every limb around her tightly. 

“Love you, bear,” she said, kissing his light blonde curls. He licked her cheek before climbing down and running onto the grass. 

“Glad to know we’re definitely related,” she said dryly, wiping away his drool with her sleeve. 

She put her arm around Milo’s neck and pulled him close. 

“Listen nugget, Shit-stine is gonna give you a hard time, but you’re the oldest now. Don’t tell dad, but you’re the real man of the house. Always tip your servers, even if they’re asshats. Be nice to people. Treat women with respect, and give men whatever respect they give you. But you’re wise as hell so you can figure it all out without me. And as soon as you get your license, please come and visit. We can get a place together if you wanna run away. Just promise you’ll pick up the phone when I call?”

Milo nodded. Trying visibly hard not to well up.

“Are you not saying anything because you might cry?” 

He nodded again and she embraced him fully. 

“Don’t let them get to you. You’re stronger than you think you are.”

She let go and Milo sulked back to the car. 

Christine was in the middle of a phone call and waved from the front seat. Her dad gave her a quick hug and a pat on the back before pursing his lips in his dad-way and calling, “See you at Christmas, honey,” on his way back to the car. 

Three months. Lou couldn’t imagine all she would experience in such a short time. 

With all her stuff moved into her double room (she had begged for a single, and was already working out how she could move), she found the residence t-shirt they had laid out for her and dug out her scissors to adjust it to her liking. 

Her roommate stared quietly and wide-eyed as this strange, tall and sharp-looking blonde with too many ear piercings suddenly brandished scissors as if they were a sword. 

The girl swallowed hard. “I don’t think you’re supposed to - ”

Lou turned around in one swift motion, scissors in hand. “I don’t remember asking you.”

She had very few conversations with her roommate from that moment on, as the English student moved to a different residence later that day. Lou had her scissors confiscated, and the place to herself. 

It was later that evening, after orientation and introductory speeches, that a shorter girl with natural red hair in two perfect French braids, approached Lou timidly where she was sitting on the front lawn of her residence.

“Hi,” she said, sounding more confident than she looked.

“Hi,” Lou responded, smiling a little bit. She’d scared several people off throughout the day, but here was this rabbit-like creature, who approached her softly, quietly, and curiously. Someone who Lou seemed the least likely to attract.

“Can I sit with you?” she asked.

“Free country,” Lou said with a half-assed gesture to their surroundings. 

“What program are you in?” The girl asked, crossing her legs and picking at the grass.

“I’m supposed to be studying business and hospitality.”

“Are you?”

“It’s what I’m good at, but it doesn’t mean I’ll like it.”

“Do you have any hobbies?”

“Played baseball for a while. I dabbled in drumming, too.”

The redhead's face lit up. “Oh, they have a wonderful music program here, apparently. My brother graduated from it a few years ago. And, you know, is there any university that doesn’t specialize in sports?”

“What about you?”

“Me?” The girl fidgeted nervously, as though no one had ever asked her anything about herself before. “Um, biology and public relations, minor in home economics.”

“That’s a mouthful. What’s your name?”

“Tammy.” The girl held out her hand. Lou shook it, staring at her curiously through her awkwardly self-cut fringe. She’d only had bangs for a month. “Yours?”

“Lou.”

“Lou. I like that. Is it short for anything?”

“It is, but I just like to be called Lou.”

“Okay, Lou.” The redhead with braids smiled.

“Why’d you really come over here?”

Tammy blushed and looked down at her hands, turning green from the grass. 

“I guess I thought you looked - “

“Scary?” Lou smirked.

Tammy blushed. “No, I thought you looked kind of lonely, actually. I’ve been lucky, I’ve made some friends in the last few hours, but I’ll admit, I’ve been watching you all day.”

“Creep,” Lou laughed, and Tammy loosened up a bit. “Don’t worry about me, I enjoy being alone.”

“Even today?”

“Yeah, I mean people are overrated. I’m not really a ‘connecting’ person, unfortunately.” It was only partially a lie. “Sorry if that’s what you were hoping for.”

If Tammy was discouraged, she didn’t let it show. “Oh, well, that’s okay. I mean, I did hope that you’d want to be friends, at least, but I also wanted to invite you to a party down the street. People show up any time after midnight.”

Lou felt excitement rise, doing everything she could to remain calm on the outside. She’d never been to a real party before.

“Sure, I’d love to. Thanks.”

“You’d love to be my friend or come to the party?”

Lou grinned and lit up a cigarette. “Don’t push it.”

Tammy smiled and extended her fingers. “May I?”

Lou raised her eyebrows. “You smoke?”

“I have.”

Lou passed the cigarette and they sat in silence for a few minutes, inhaling and exhaling.

When they were finished, Tammy stood up to crush it on the pavement. Lou found herself admiring her small feet in what appeared to be a stylish new pair of Vans. 

“What room are you in?” Tammy asked.

“That’s presumptuous of you.”

“In case I have to break in and steal more cigarettes.”

Lou sort of laughed? Tammy beamed.

“I’m in two-zero-eight.” Lou stated.

“I’m in three-thirty-nine. I can come downstairs and meet you whenever you’re ready to go.”

“Is there a dress code?”

Tammy smirked. “Who are you trying to get with?”

“I didn’t think it mattered.” She lied. A person’s wardrobe was definitely something that mattered. To her, deeply. 

“Fully dressed if you’re looking for girls - they like sharp and sexy but mysterious. Little to no clothing if it’s guys. Drunk guys lack the imagination. Drunk girls love to be teased. But if you tease too much they move on really quickly. It’s a fine line, I’ve learned.”

Lou laughed again, really, and stood up. “Do fishnets count as fully dressed?”

Tammy’s face lit up. “I’ll allow it. I’ll be half-dressed.”

Lou was undoubtedly relieved to meet someone else like her so soon. But she tried to hide her longing for a friend right away. She put another cigarette between her lips and shook Tammy’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, half-dressed. Let’s hope we’re not the only fags at this joint.”

“I can assure you, we won’t be. See you soon,” Tammy said before she ran inside, her braids bouncing off her shoulders with every sprint.

Lou couldn’t help glancing at Tammy’s shoes again. _What must it be like to have small feet? Do they have any problems in life at all? Do they actually buy the shoes they like? Do stores make shoes in their size?_

_Fascinating._

Lou smiled to herself. She had made a friend. A medium-sized friend with small feet, but a friend nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tammy's small peets for president (fun fact Sarah Paulson's IRL bff if Amanda Peet)


	3. The One With the Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning (finally) of a beautiful friendship.

Lou had picked out a black lace long sleeved turtleneck that lifted an inch or so above her waistline along with a red leather miniskirt and fishnets. She donned her Harley Davidson boots and several golden chains around her neck.

Tammy knocked on her door at 11:45 pm. 

Lou opened the door and threw on her silver and red bomber jacket. “Wanna run?”

Tammy looked at Lou in momentary astonishment. “Yeah I do.” Her fiery hair was down and wavy from the braids, and she had thrown on purple lipstick and matching eyeshadow. 

Lou shrugged. “Okay, well, I don’t know where it is, so you have to go first.”

The shorter girl smiled, her cheeks pink as she bolted down the hall, Lou hot on her heels. 

They shrieked, yelled, and cursed into the night air, occasionally echoed by drunk fellow students spilling beer on the grass and pavement.

“Littering means you’re just as trash as what you throw out, be nice to our fucking planet, bitches,” Tammy yelled out to the group of reckless students. 

They made it to the party, a large two-story house lit up with a coloured disco ball and The Who blasting through the speakers. 

Lou already felt at home.

She was getting used to the nickname older students gave them, both affectionately and dismissively calling them “froshies”. 

They walked in through a flurry of shirtless men covered in beer and paint, screaming and sharing in their toxic masculinity, and Tammy yelled in Lou’s ear.

“I’m gonna go get us some drinks, you okay here?”

Lou just nodded contentedly. Tammy went off and left her to look around the room, taking it all in, the excitement and the smell of alcohol, weed, the sexual tension, the sense of belonging, of family, while being a complete stranger. 

Meanwhile, Tam had gone into the kitchen and spotted a relatively tall brunette with shoulder length hair, tied neatly into a half-ponytail. She stood alone in the corner drinking out of a flask, but she didn’t look lonely. Or afraid. Or shy, for that matter. She looked like it was her drug, her passion, people-watching and analyzing everything in sight. Tammy was hit with familiarity. 

She approached the girl. “Debbie?”

The girl turned. “No way. Tammy.”

“Thank God there’s someone else here who’s actually hit puberty.”

They shared a laugh and an eager embrace. She and Debbie had met in a situation very similar to this moment in middle school, minus the alcohol. Even the sex appeal had been the same. Underdeveloped, immature, and heavily saturated in false hope.

Tammy discovered Debbie in the corner, alone, watching the rest of the students but still having the time of her life. 

They hadn’t seen each other or talked in several years. 

“I had no idea you were gonna be here,” said Tammy. “Of all places.”

Deb shrugged, smiling mischievously. “I wanted to stray a little from the Ocean legacy. At least in terms of education.”

Tammy nodded, her curiousity deepening on the subject of exactly what Debbie’s family did for a living.

“What about you? It’s like no time has passed. You’re looking sharp.”

Tammy gave a half-assed answer. “You know. College. Gotta hustle.”

“How’s your mom?”

“Still my mom. How’s your dad?”

“Still wants to bang your mom.”

“Has he learned her name yet?”

“Nope.”

“Classic Dennis.”

Something about Debbie’s independence and happiness being isolated, something about the freshness of seeing her in this light, in this whole other world between the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood clutched at Tammy’s instincts and didn’t let go.

“I have someone I’d like you to meet,” she said.

Debbie took a sip of her drink and gestured. “Lead the way, Tim-Tam.”

The brunette followed her childhood friend through the crowds from the unflattering lighting of the kitchen, past the flashing, pounding atmosphere of the living room and down to the end of the dim hallway, where Lou stood with her back and one studded boot against the wall.

Debbie already had eyes on her before she even knew who Tammy was talking about.

“Lou, this is Debbie. I found her in the kitchen. We were in middle school together.”

“And to think I’ve been looking for women outside the kitchen this whole time,” Lou said facetiously, standing upright and holding out her hand to the alluring brunette, but not before time seemed to slow down completely.

“Lou. Is that your real name?” Debbie asked smoothly, somewhat floored by Lou’s snappy response. And a pair of piercing eyes underneath impulsively cut fringe. How unsettlingly familiar she looked. It was vague enough that she didn’t feel it appropriate to bring up the question of baseball. Could she be? She shouldn’t ask. Not yet.

Lou smirked, already lost to the jaws of intellectual stimulation. “At least take me out to dinner first.”

Tammy sensed the connection that Lou had previously denied existed inside her at all. She stepped back, a smile growing on her face that she tried to make herself scarce. “I think they’re asking me to go play Pong, I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

Neither of them blinked when Tammy disappeared, almost like a magic trick.

“What’s your full name, at least?” Debbie asked. 

“Miller. Lou Miller. You?

“Debbie Ocean.” 

They were hardly names they could easily forget.

“You’re kidding.”

“Not in the slightest, Miller. You got a drink?”

Tammy, on her drink expedition, had neglected to get them both drinks. “Tammy was going to get me one.”

Deb’s eyes roamed from Lou’s boots to the fair complexion of her teasing waistline, briefly over her Debbie Harry breasts and up to her smoky and electrifying blue eyes through her charmingly edgy sex-appeal bangs.

“She got you one, alright,” Debbie confirmed as she took a swig of her drink, still not taking her eyes off of the blonde.

Lou connected Tammy’s advice to Debbie’s outfit. High waisted leather slacks paired with a sheer crop top. _Half-dressed._

_I’ve met more queer people in a day than I have in my entire seventeen years on this heterosaturated planet._

She wondered why the girl’s eyes seemed to strike a nonverbal conversation that had been put on hold for several years. Why it didn’t feel like an introduction, but rather, a reunion. But making friends was precarious for Lou, so she didn’t push it. 

The pounding, demanding music abruptly stopped, and a loud, shirtless man stood up on the table that was sticky with beer and cocaine shouting, “COPS OUTSIDE, PARTY’S OVER!”

Debbie was an expert in “looks”. She couldn’t miss the flash of discomfort on Lou’s face, for it reminded her far too much of her brother. Of Rusty. Of her father. 

Of herself. 

“I’m not exactly a model citizen, so I should be leaving,” Lou said with a perplexing amount of charm.

Deb relaxed her jaw, a rush of excitement pumping towards her heart. “Not many of us are. What’s your excuse?”

Lou tucked a cigarette behind her ear and flipped another one into her mouth, giving Debbie a _highly_ suspicious - or flirtatious? - look. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Debbie Ocean.”

They shook hands, entirely aware of the feeling when their fingers touched. The gentle androgyny of Lou’s, the toned femininity of Debbie’s. They couldn’t have touched before. What were the odds? “Lou Miller. The pleasure’s all mine.”

Before anything more could be said, Lou disappeared into the kitchen, seeking to follow the crowd towards the back door. She had no doubt that everything would be fine, the police were certainly not there for her, but she strongly disliked anything and everything authority seemed to stand for. Now was her time to lay low. 

Deb was intrigued, even more motivated to make friends with this alluring, mysterious woman, to the point where she even began to go after her. 

_Not exactly a model citizen._

It felt far too familiar. She’d made it to the kitchen before she remembered Tammy. 

Going against the loose, inconsistent current, she headed for the living room, looking around desperately for the only frizzy redhead she knew.

The girl in purple lipstick suddenly appeared, taking her gently by the arm. “Come on, Deb, let’s get out of here.”

The girls slipped out the back door and Debbie searched nonchalantly for Lou, but it did not go unnoticed by Tammy. 

“She’s so hot.”

Deb turned to her friend. “Hm?”

“Lou.”

“Oh, God, a bombshell. She just said something that got me really curious, but then dipped as soon as the cops arrived.”

Tammy linked arms with the brunette. “That’s what we’re doing, so it’s a shame she didn’t stick around so we could look even more suspicious and hot together. Anyway, I just got laid.”

Debbie squeezed her hand. “I’ve always admired your efficiency. It’s been barely ten minutes since I last saw you. How was it?”

“Disappointing. I’ve decided on a life of celibacy. Saving myself for my future spouse starts now.”

  
  



	4. The One With Bingo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ladies meet again after a week, in slightly different circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls be kind about the Bingo rigging, I haven't found any information on how that might actually be done, and I'm not always le brightest, so for the sake of this fic please just suspend your imaginations beyond the logistics of it all, haha. I encourage your feedback and love for this story!!! Thank you for reading!

A week passed, in the way only Froshies can experience, where one thing happens that kicks off the triggers for fifty other things and before you know it you either hate it there or you don’t. 

Lou had yet to be convinced of anything. But she stuck it out, visiting with Tammy nearly every day to watch movies and eat their weight in popcorn. Until finally Lou deemed it appropriate to wonder aloud where their mysterious friend had gone.

“She disappears,” Tammy began. “It happened all the time in middle school. People usually think she’s off doing something elaborate and doesn’t want any disruptions…” she paused, licking the paper of a joint at her desk in the harsh fluorescent lamplight, rolling it into a finished product. “Which is probably true. But sometimes she just likes to be alone to exist.”

Lou had starfished on Tammy’s bed, struggling to pick the shell of a devastating corn kernel out of her gums. “Sounds like the three of us would get along quite well.”

Tammy agreed “That’s what I told her after that party.”

“Got it,” Lou said, tossing the shell in the trash. “I can function now.”

“I already feel bored,” Tammy lamented in her quiet, thoughtful inflection. 

Lou slouched, running her hands through her hair. “That’s because classes just started. We haven’t even had any real homework yet. At least I haven’t.”

“Maybe that’s it. I’ve already finished all my homework.”

They shared a goofy, late-night laugh. _Late night_ was all relative, for it was barely even eight o’clock. 

“I think there’s a game of Bingo in Pearson hall. We could go to that.”

Tammy yawned. “I think I’ll pass, honestly. My essay could benefit from being rewritten a few times.”

Lou cringed, stretching as she stood up. “I envy your passion for the meticulous.” 

“It’s my burden to bear, I certainly wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

“Thanks for the popcorn and the movie. See you tomorrow?”

“Duh. Have fun at Bingo.”

Lou grabbed her sweater and headed out the door, half jogging down the hall towards the exit. Pearson hall was close by, and her watch read 7:59.

She snuck through the propped-open door of the hall and saw at least thirty students crammed in like sardines. 

There was an empty seat in one of the corners and she quickly took it, ducking to avoid being a distraction with her height. Someone came around and discreetly passed her a Bingo card and a marker, and she prepared herself to mark off thematic “drinking culture” references, but was met with just plain old Bingo. 

Her height was no longer the most prevalent thing on her mind.

About halfway through her card, she noticed another inconspicuously tall drink of water across the room, her head nearly on the table…from boredom? Discretion? Depression? Maybe she’d actually fallen asleep?

_No._ Her foot was tapping away impatiently. She was _thinking._

Her legs were long and awkward under the table, giving Lou almost an exact impression of her height. 

_Hang on…._

Almost as though it was a sign from the heavens, the student to the woman’s right had an aggressive coughing fit, standing up and stepping outside. 

Lou wasted no time.

With her card and marker in hand, she quietly crossed the room as students muttered things to one another, adding to the steady purr of white noise, and the hosts droned on calling letter-number combinations. Taking the empty seat, Lou made herself comfortable and kept her mouth shut.

Out of the corner of her eye, the brunette lifted her head to study her. Lou could almost feel the wheels in her head turning.

“What are you doing here, outlaw?”

Lou faked an expression of _oh, hello, I didn’t see you there._ Ironically. 

“I’m playing Bingo.”

Debbie snuck a glance at Lou’s card. “You’re winning.”

Lou cocked an eyebrow. “Sorry for your loss.”

The brunette wasn’t sure what to say next. _I’m supposed to be the one with the witty comebacks. I think I’m short-circuiting._

Lou smiled to herself. _This is either going to be a crippling power struggle or the most intellectually satisfying friendship of all time._

They both said a silent prayer for it to be the latter, but Bingo would prove otherwise,

_“L-69.”_

Lou was quick to comment. “Sixty-nine sounds much less appealing when people say it out loud.”

After a while, the hosts called a five minute break, and the room immediately filled with the sound of meaningless, loud conversation. 

Debbie couldn’t stand their silence any longer. “You’re from Australia?”

“Born. Not raised.” She turned her head and gave Debbie a smirk. “Accent’s a bit posh, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t see you as someone who’d be into Bingo.”

“Funny, I didn’t think you saw me at all until I sat down beside you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

Debbie leaned closer, her voice dropping slightly. “Tell me what you meant when you said you weren’t exactly a model citizen.”

“I thought you’d already called me an outlaw. What do you think I meant?”

The brunette retreated. “I just like people with secrets, that’s all.”

Now it was Lou’s turn to peek at Debbie’s card. “You’re further along than I am.”

Debbie faced her again. “And that is exactly how I know why you’re not a model citizen."

Lou leaned forward on her elbows. “Alright, try me.”

The tension was thick.

“I think you’ve rigged it.”

Lou raised her eyebrows. “And how do I know you haven’t rigged it yourself?”

“You don’t.”

“Well I guess we’ll find out which one of us has rigged it and which one of us definitely hasn’t.”

_“B-52.”_

_“T-21.”_

_“S-84.”_

The last number was called and they anxiously watched the wheel turning with bated breaths. 

_“O-8.”_

The both glanced down at their cards. 

They looked at each other. 

“Bingo.”

“Bingo.”

Used to the competition of living with two brothers, Lou practically pounced out of her seat to collect her winnings, and left Debbie scrambling to follow.

Another round was announced, but the blonde was beyond satisfied. She took her ten dollar dining hall credit with a smug smile and exited through the propped-open door out into the indecisive temperature of early September.

Of course, she danced with the underlying desire that the brunette would go after her. But Lou didn’t like waiting.

Two could play this game.

She heard the footsteps on the concrete behind her as she headed down the corridor, deciding whether or not to spend her credit now or save it for the breakfast of champions. She supposed there was nothing stopping her from having the breakfast of champions at nine o’clock at night.

“Hey,” Debbie called to her, about five paces behind.

Lou glanced over her shoulder. “Do I know you?”

“There’s no way in hell that was just a coincidence.”

“Well, there is, but it’s definitely not likely.”

“You seem like a professional Bingo rigger.”

“In the business since I was thirteen. Yourself?”

“My brother taught me.”

“What does he do?”

Debbie cleared her throat, finally catching up to the other ridiculously tall woman. “He’s not exactly a model citizen either.”

Lou lit up a cigarette and offered it to Deb. “Sounds like a real catch. I’d love to meet him someday. We could all be not model citizens together.”

The brunette politely declined the cigarette. Lou took another draw.

“You rig Bingo and you don’t smoke?”

“I can’t say I understand the appeal.” She gave a shy smile. “I didn’t think you smoked.”

“Longer than I’ve been rigging Bingo.” But Lou got pensive. _Trauma? Consolation? Fun? Looking cool?_ Maybe she didn’t even know. “I bought my first pack when I could afford it, and have been treating myself ever since. If I didn’t make enough money to help feed my brothers or keep my dad from beating any of us up, it was an incentive to cut back.”

“I admire your self-discipline.”

“So how old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

Lou clicked her tongue. “Bullshit.”

“Truth. Born on New Years, so I’ve probably still got at least a few months on you.”

“I don’t believe it. You dress like a senior, at least.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. What about you?”

“How old am I?”

“Yeah.”

“Seventeen. My birthday’s in a week.”

“So you’re smoking illegally right now?”

“Smoking’s the least illegal thing I’ve done tonight.”

Debbie shrugged. “I guess rules don’t apply during Frosh week. Take it and run with it.”

Lou would have to get used to that. But she still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they’d met before. The feeling that their hands touching a week ago was not the first time. 

“I’d like to get to know you, Ocean,” Lou stated.

Debbie turned to look at her, already feeling her layers being chipped away by this complete stranger. Now was either the time to disappear, or the time to immerse. Something screamed at her to do the latter. The same thing that told her to look further underneath her choppy bangs.

“In what way?”

“Oh, lots of ways. As friends, as students, as criminal partners, all of the ways, really. What building are you in?”

“Pearson.”

“So, you’re following me?”

Debbie tucked her hands in her pockets. “I needed answers.”

“I didn’t know you had questions.”

Deb knew she had a point. She hadn’t technically asked her a single question beyond how old she was. But she had gotten her to speak, nonetheless.

“We could get lunch tomorrow. Get to know each other over our collective illegal twenty-dollar Bingo dining hall-credits,” Lou suggested, chewing the inside of her lip and tapping ash onto the pavement as they walked towards her building.

“I thought you wanted me to take you to dinner,” Debbie repeated, smiling at the reminder of their first meeting. 

Lou silently marvelled at her attention to detail. “Not as a date, I think I’d really just like to watch you eat first to know what I’d be getting myself into if we’re going to be friends.”

Debbie was quick to use her sarcasm. “I didn’t agree to friends. Did I say friends?”

But her spine tingled in response to the familiar way Lou seemed to see right through her, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “You didn’t have to.”


	5. The One With the Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A playful shenanigan involving shitty dining hall food and stargazing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omgomgomgomg finally getting somewhere and moving forward into the ACTUAL CANON NARRATIVE I'M SO EXCITED THANK YOU FOR READING SO FAR!!! but full disclosure: next chapter is just a little light threesome smut before we get there lol (and by light threesome smut I mean explicit threesome smut that will completely shatter my explicit rating)

At lunch the following day, they talked about their respective programs and how, if they became friends, they could manage each other’s mood swings when things became stressful.

“I zone out,” Lou commented. “So if I’m not talking to you it’s nothing personal.” 

“It would be understandable if it was personal, however. I can be very irritating after a while.”

“Like the minute you open your mouth?”

Debbie just gaped at her like a codfish before the two burst into giggles for a good minute. 

Eventually, they turned their attention to discussing the casserole in front of them. 

“You’d think for all the money we pay they’d actually feed us good food,” Lou wagered.

“I don’t know,” Debbie said casually, enjoying another forkful. “I’m starting to like the taste of room temperature garbage.”

“God, you’re funny, you know that?”

“Well, I like your laugh, so I hustle hard.”

And they erupted in side-splitting laughter once again.

They spent an hour outside, lying in the grass, stargazing and talking about their childhoods. 

“Isn’t this a little cliché? Lying in the grass looking up at the stars and talking about our childhoods?” Debbie questioned.

“Only if your childhood was cliché, and I think neither of us can say that we fit into that standard.”

“I’m so glad we agree on that.”

The remainder of the week was the same, they spent time getting to know each other and attempting to make more friends, joining Tammy’s newfound inner circle and getting high playing truth or dare on the weekends.

Three months later, approaching Christmas holidays, Debbie misplaced her watch, the one she had stolen from her brother before leaving for school. She called Lou with a hunch.

“Did you take my watch?”

“I don’t need a watch. Why, is it missing?”

_Oh, shit._ “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I stated a fact.”

_Who was this woman?!_ “You’re dodging my questions with your own questions and facts.”

“That is a fact.”

“Where’s the watch, Miller?”

“I wouldn’t steal your watch when it really belongs to your brother.”

Deb raised her eyebrows. “And of course, you would know that because you stole it.”

A smile played on Lou’s lips before she opened her drawer, pulled out the watch, and fiddled with the satisfaction.

“Guess you’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands, first.”

Deb couldn’t stop her own grin. “Well played, Miller.”

“Come over.”

When Deb arrived and retrieved her watch, Lou leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms behind her head. “You’re smart, I’ll give you that. What made you finally come around?”

Deb sighed. “Well, first of all, you lie like my father, brother, and me, for that matter, and I could tell the moment we met that you, Lou Miller, are a natural born _con artist._ ”

The blonde played with the moment. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to my face.”

“I want to show you something.”

Lou leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. Her voice dropped exaggeratedly. “What, are you going to show me how to make con art?”

They put on their jackets and crossed the lawn to Debbie’s building, up the stairs to her room, where she showed Lou a drawer full of several shiny items, all neatly placed in their own columns and rows.

Lou’s eyes flashed and she took a closer look.

“I take it you’re no Robin Hood, Miss Ocean,” she stated, completely entranced by the shining jewels - necklaces, rings, watches, even a few handkerchiefs.

“The professors here are easy to talk to.”

Lou whistled low. “So the whole family does this, you said? You steal shit?”

“ _Con artists_.”

“Right, right. So why are you showing me this?”

“Because I believe in what those hands and that face can do, Miller. I think we’d make a great team.”

Lou smiled cheekily and blew a pink bubble, deep in thought. “What exactly are you proposing?”

If it hadn't been confirmed before, that pink bubble had never been more pink. Instead of the typical _popping_ sound, Deb heard the echo of baseball on wooden bat ringing through her ears. 

Again, it didn't seem important to bring it up. Lou probably didn't remember anyway. 

“My brother’s got me happily in his shadow, my dad barely recognizes my existence. My mom’s been out of the picture as long as I can remember. My aunt Ida doesn’t know a thing, bless her heart. This is what I’m good at, and I have a feeling you’re good at it too, so I’m asking if you want to do what we both seem to be good at together.”

Lou gazed at her friend, and for a long time neither of them said anything. Part of Lou’s silence was pure disbelief that she had run into this person at all. It seemed they were somewhat fated to team up, and, somewhat, become dirty, filthy rich. Somewhat.

But she was loving every minute of it, even if it would probably take more than her bubblegum to remind Debbie of what might have been their first meeting. “Consider me all in.”

Debbie smiled with a sigh of relief. “I’d love for you to meet my dad. He’s an asshole, but a professional. And he doesn’t like blondes. Then again he doesn’t like women. Especially not women like _us_.” She gestured with two obscene fingers. “But we can put that aside for the sake of a job.”

“How serious is this? If we get caught, are we gonna go to prison?”

Deb weighed the chances. “If we get caught, most likely.” She nodded pleasantly, but internally frowned at the possibility that now Lou would not be interested.

“What if it’s more likely that we get caught?”

The brunette shrugged. “We’ll just have to do our jobs right.”

But Lou Miller just nodded. “When do we start?”


	6. The One With the Threesome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1997: Summer of University Graduation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no notes for this. But I really love the ending so I hope you enjoy this next chapter :)))) Thank you so very much for reading and I always love your comments!

“Fuck, is that what running from the law feels like?” Tammy asked breathlessly, slamming the hotel room door shut behind her so the three of them could finally relax and count their Bingo winnings. 

“Not in the slightest,” Debbie replied, barely out of breath as she sat by the window and put her feet up, uncorking a bottle of champagne. “But you’re definitely good at the running part.”

“I’m impressed, Tam.” Lou collapsed on the bed and kicked off her heels, though a woman of her height hardly needed them. She had to duck to walk through the door. “I thought we made a pretty good threesome.”

“To the best threesome in America,” Debbie proposed as Lou got on her knees so she could have champagne poured directly in her mouth.

Tammy corrected her. “The best threesome in the _world_.”

Lou wiped her mouth on her sleeve and repeated the fountain act for Debbie, purposefully dribbling some on her chin to make her laugh. “I need to get fucked.”

“That’s not news,” Deb replied, giggling as she dried off her face and chest.

“Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“I bet if we just made a lot of moaning noises someone would come knocking and we could ask if they wanted to join,” Tammy suggested.

Lou picked at her brand new nail polish, longing for some part of her to be not quite so _polished._ “I had so much sex this year, I think I’m numb to what an orgasm is supposed to feel like. My clit probably fell off in January.”

“I’m sure someone very lucky found it, if that’s the case,” Tammy argued. “I know people who can only make themselves come, not with anyone else. I always see that as a challenge. I’m a biology student, I like to get to the bottom of organisms.”

“The bottom of orgasms, I think you mean.” Lou smirked, her eyes closing as she rested.

“I should’ve had _more_ sex,” Debbie lamented. “That’s probably my one regret.”

Lou took a swig from her bottle. “Let’s not focus on regrets. Only the good stuff tonight. What was the best sex you’ve both had in the last four years?”

Tammy sighed heavily, answering first. “Oh, man. Probably this one person in between classes in third year. We’d agreed that we would just do it as friends.” She checked her hair in the mirror. “Neither of us even finished, we just fucked around for sixty minutes and then went to our next class like it was totally normal. Super fun. I’d never been choked before. They told me I was ‘such a bottom’. I felt very seen. I tried to be more of a switch, but I’m coming to terms with the fact that there’s really nothing wrong with being submissive as fuck.” Tammy began to stretch in various yoga poses on the patterned carpet.

Debbie let out a low whistle. “Look out, Tammy’s a freak.” She blew across the top of her champagne bottle looking for a sound, already half-buzzed. 

Lou was joining her on the way to intoxication. The adrenaline withdrawal kicked in hard. “I think mine was this girl named Raven. Also third year. Is it just me or was third year like, really good?”

Her friends nodded and hummed in agreement. Debbie stepped over Tammy, in the fetal position, to the fridge where their leftover pad thai sat in its foil container. “Tell us about Raven so we can live vicariously through you.”

“I love the Raven story,” Tammy mumbled into the floor.

Lou continued, gazing up at the ceiling in remembrance. “Raven had these perfect tits. I’m very picky about size. Huge tits just don’t work for me. It drives me wild when I can fit the entire thing in my mouth or in my hand. They weren’t small, which I also like, but they were just perfect. She had a cupid tattoo right between her hips and a few others on her thighs. Her skin was soft, her stretch marks were glorious. She asked me to take ‘tasteful nudes’ of her. Then we just hung out naked and ate chocolate afterwards.”

Debbie grunted, her mouth stuffed with pad thai. “ _You reher hold us hat harf!”_ She swallowed impatiently, powering through the heartburn. “You never told us that part. Did you save the nudes?”

Lou sighed in disappointment. “They were on my Polaroid. She kept them.”

“Shame on Lou,” Tammy whispered as she resurfaced into a sun salutation, definitely mostly not sober. 

Debbie took her turn. “Remember that guy I dated in second year?”

Tammy gasped, losing her balance transitioning into downward-facing-dog. “Oh, my God, the guy who talked from his belly button?!”

Lou snorted, her fresh serving of champagne nearly coming out of her nose. Debbie confirmed it.

“Definitely the biggest dick I’ve ever had. I never quite felt like he enjoyed going down on me. To be fair, I didn’t always enjoy going down on him either. But at least he thought I was good at it.” She raised another mouthful of noodles, but paused. “He could never figure out how to touch me no matter how much I tried to show him, or help him. It’s so fucking unfair when unhygienic and nihilistic white boys with nicotine addictions have massive fucking cocks. Like, dude, go on a spiritual retreat or brush your teeth or do some yoga like Tammy so you might actually deserve to be wielding that thing around and it’s no longer your best asset.”

“They also never respect their mothers,” Tammy agreed. “And act like it’s their world and you’re just living in it.”

Lou scoffed. “God, I’m getting gayer by the second. I don’t even have a mother and that turns me off.”

“Lou, I wonder if our moms are out there together pulling a Thelma and Louise,” Debbie said, practically inhaling the rest of the leftovers with her cheap pair of chopsticks.

“I only want to imagine that if it’s the gay kind of Thelma and Louise.”

“Is there any other kind of Thelma and Louise?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Tammy added. “But I like the idea that they’re really just friends.”

“Of course, and they definitely were,” Debbie replied. “But we’re just thirsty whores begging for our Hollywood producer daddies to stuff queercoding down our throats. We take it and run with it.”

“Sometimes right over the cliff,” Lou added with a half-hearted gesture. Debbie giggled into her noodles.

“I’m so glad none of us are straight,” Tammy expressed. “I think our lives would be a lot less exciting if we were.”

“God, imagine.” Debbie circled back. “You know what pissed me off the most about belly button boy?”

Lou yelled. “Preach!”

“He always saw his opinion as fact, and I only ever had the options to either agree and be seen with respect, or disagree and be viewed as ‘sentimental’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘weak’. I never even wanted to argue with him because I knew I’d never win. It wasn’t until I had a dream about him a year later that I actually got angry and argued back. In my dream.”

Tammy struggled to cross her ankles over one another. “He repeatedly gaslighted you. What was his name again?”

“Warren Piece.”

“Like the book?”

“No, like, his name was actually Warren Piece.”

The three of them erupted into contagious, boundless laughter.

When the room slowly quieted, they tuned in to the hum of the refrigerator and the air conditioner, alongside the distant sirens and car engines from outside. “Men can be great,” Tammy began. “They have good assets, and man-hating is inherently anti-feminist and I’m against it, but can we just, like, put them on hold for a hot minute? Encourage them to maybe have sex with each other for once. Put them in a sex timeout.”

“Kind of like a sex strike?”

“Yeah, but sex timeout sounds more like we have the power and we’re telling them what to do rather than what we’re _not_ going to do.”

Lou finally sat up, fully joining the conversation, but notwithstanding the dizziness that came with her headrush. “That would leave women more opportunities to have sex with each other.”

“More gay people.”

“Couldn’t be horrible.”

There was a quiet lull before Debbie finished another bottle of champagne, and Lou’s eyes suddenly fell on the way her breasts peeked out through her white button-down shirt. _What the hell was that? Why am I looking at those?_

She swallowed, turning to Tammy, who was practically half-undressed in her lightweight state, and just finally accomplishing a stable downward-facing-dog. _Why does Tammy suddenly have an ass?_

It was silly. She’d seen them both naked multiple times and never felt anything. Now she was just drunk. 

As though she read her mind, Tammy straightened up and asked, “Either of you ever considered having sex with each other?”

Lou and Deb shared a look. 

Debbie braced herself for her best friend to laugh. For herself having to laugh, too, as a safety net.

But Lou made no such sound.

The brunette took her sudden silence - along with the surging, thoughtful depth behind her familiar blue eyes - and volleyed it back to Tammy. “Have _you_ considered having sex with one of us?”

Tammy had never been so confident. Maybe it was the champagne. Maybe it was her freshly-aligned chakras. “I’m drunk, so I’ll be honest. Right this minute I’m considering having sex with both of you. If you’re interested.”

The blush in Lou’s cheeks increased, and Debbie felt the familiar dizzying and hot sensation between her thighs. This was probably the alcohol, as they all seemed to be sinking deeper under the influence, or the adrenaline from their first bingo rigging with Tammy. But it definitely seemed as though their best friend was coming on to them.

In response to the offer, Lou yanked off her blazer and her three most important rings. “I’m interested.”

Tammy looked at Deb, then to Lou, and back to Deb. The idea of being sandwiched between two of the most beautiful women she’d ever met was almost unfathomable. But she was suddenly _dripping_ at how much she wanted it. 

Not another word was spoken.

Debbie and Tammy crawled onto the bed. Lou’s body acted a few steps ahead of her mind, kissing Tammy first. It was bubbly, like champagne, triggering a strange vibration in the back of her head. Something tearing her away while forcing her closer. They separated and Lou felt dizzy, pausing before turning to Deb. 

Her best friend of four years looked her in the eyes as though to say, _hello. Have we met?_

Suddenly Debbie was on the baseball field again, dropping the bat with that very same _clank_ , but instead of chasing her first home run, she ran directly into the arms of the girl who intrigued her more than anything else in the world, to do exactly as she’d wished to do at fifteen years old.

Lou kissed her languidly, their tongues meeting patiently with sweet, pink lips.

This time there was a magnetic surge, like the two correct ends coming together in a secure, satisfying _snap._ The kiss was warm and inviting, and daring enough for the two of them to even forget where they were.

Lou now had two pairs of hands on her body, abandoning the kiss with much difficulty, forcing herself to take another sip of her champagne and catching her breath.

Tammy bit her lip in thought. “You guys don’t think this will be weird, do you?”

Deb and Lou shared a look. A _baseball_ look.

“No, I don’t think it would be weird.”

“I’m not weird, are you weird?” Lou queried. 

“I’m not weird. It’s only weird if one of us makes it weird.”

Tammy didn’t know what to do next. “I’m usually pretty good at initiating sex, but right now it feels like my whole body is tongue-tied.”

Lou had finished the bottle of champagne and let it roll off the bed, both she and Debbie shifting closer to their friend. “Can we untie it for you?” Deb asked in her rich, demanding tone. 

Mirroring one another, both women’s lips latched onto the hot flesh of Tammy’s neck, eliciting a soft moan that felt like it had been waiting to escape for months. “Yes, please,” Tammy whimpered politely.

“What’s your safe word, baby?” Lou said softly, carefully tongueing the base of her ear and nibbling with her teeth. 

“I’ve never had one,” Tammy replied, chills rippling through her and settling in her core. “What do you guys use?”

Debbie volunteered, brushing Tammy’s red curls away from her shoulder. “Mine’s Nickelback.”

Lou played with the top buttons of Debbie’s shirt. “I use Nerfherder. Definitely _not_ the geek rock band. That would technically be two safe words, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of commitment.”

Debbie gave Lou a look. “Nerfherder? Really?”

“Really? Nickelback?” Lou deadpanned. Debbie flicked her arm playfully. “Use your imagination, Tam.”

Lou ran her hand over Tammy’s knee and up her thigh, tantalizingly slow. Tammy closed her eyes tightly, floating into the sensations. “Bingo,” she whispered.

The other two women laughed gently, and the warm sensuality that dripped from their voices vibrated in her eardrums. 

Lou found Tammy’s lips again. Tammy cursed internally at the unfairness of how good of a kisser she was. Debbie tugged at Tammy’s shirt and she lifted her arms above her head accordingly. She commonly went without a bra, as did Lou, and Deb grinned at the sight before sucking at one of her erect nipples. 

Tammy whined into Lou’s kiss, her brain fogging up and threatening to pass out at the feeling of both mouths on her. 

In a sudden shift of attention, the redhead and the brunette encouraged the blonde to lay back against the pillows and Tammy made curious and excited work of her breasts, while Debbie unfastened her pants like it was a treasure to be revealed. 

Lou lifted her hips to accommodate, and once her underwear was off, Debbie couldn’t resist.

“Is there something about queer women being together that causes us all to just naturally get really wet?”

But there was no time for Lou to even respond, for Debbie’s witty serpent’s tongue was on her already, and there was even less time for her to think about how strange it all was. 

Two women at once, let alone the only two women who knew every one of her secrets. It was unfair how Debbie’s mouth in bed was just as good as her mouth in an argument.

Her breath hitched as Tammy sucked at a sensitive spot on her neck, and the sensations at the North and South end of her body met somewhere in the middle to tangle her stomach into a knot. 

“Hang on, I’ve got something,” she said as her eyes shot open and she sat up.

“Oh, I love surprises,” Tammy said as she kissed Debbie again for good measure, tasting Lou. Psychedelic colours seemed to fly about the room.

Lou dug out a strap-on from her suitcase. 

Debbie’s eyes widened. “Wow. Did you plan for this?”

Lou removed her earrings. “Men have built-in equipment. I always have extra carryon.”

Tammy’s eyes flickered from Deb’s hazy expression to Lou, whose button-up shirt hung open to reveal her fair, freckled chest and several gold chains, and was now slipping on the intricate-looking harness for the monstrous dildo.

“Lou, my pussy’s like a keyhole, are you sure that’s gonna fit?” The redhead asked timidly.

Lou crawled onto the bed and Deb beamed at her proudly, biting her lip like she could practically taste the adventure they were about to have. 

“You’ve had a cock in you before, haven’t you?” Lou asked, aware of Tammy’s sometimes-sleepovers. 

Tammy swallowed. “Yes, but - ” Her eyes fell to the massive and permanently rock-hard silicone appendage. “Nothing quite like that.”

Deb shrugged. “Neither have I, but there’s a first time for everything. We’ll work each other up to it.”

Tammy felt a surge of confidence as she took Debbie’s face in her hands and kissed her, full of passion, ready for anything. Debbie practically ripped off her top and slid her hands underneath Tammy’s skirt, followed by Lou. Tammy released another unexpected moan when Lou hooked her fingers inside her panties and felt the slick heat gathering there. “You’re so nice and wet already.”

Lou thought it criminal how much she was enjoying it, but then she felt Debbie’s hand on her ass, and it was suddenly like she’d just opened that inviting drawer from four years ago. 

The brunette promptly bent over when Lou wordlessly offered to remove her skirt.

Deb slipped out of her underwear next and Lou bore her teeth down on her ass, rewarding her skin with a tongue-filled kiss and a firm, loose slap. 

“God, you read my mind,” Debbie breathed. “How’d you know I like that?”

“My room was next to yours, you goof,” Lou said in an absent focus. 

Deb quickly pressed her body against Lou’s. The blonde slid the head of the dildo against Debbie’s slit, moving easily with her arousal. Her free hand gripped the brunette’s hair and gave it a light tug, eliciting a blissful moan from her throat.

Lou gave a devilish grin. “I know that, too.”

Tammy had begun touching herself mindlessly, teasing as she waited her turn. She silently marvelled at how Deb’s face contorted with pleasure, the sheer artistic beauty of the scene. The way they spoke and moved, even for the first time but each knowing the other inside and out, it was intoxicating.

When you share the same paper-thin walls, you might as well be in the same room. It was like they’d been fucking each other for the last few years without ever actually doing it.

And now they were all much closer to drunk than sober. 

Debbie tugged off Lou’s crisp, white dress shirt. 

Lou whispered in her ear, her fingers teasing gently at the brunette’s throat. “Don’t look now, but Tammy’s getting busy without us.”

Debbie shifted forward, pressing Tammy’s body down further and kissing across her torso, over her hips and kissing at her core. Tammy whined when Deb’s tongue parted her and ran up the length of her throbbing cunt. 

The whole thing happened so smoothly that it took Debbie’s increased noises of pleasure and occasional thrust forward to realize that Lou had her from behind, and Deb’s candle was now burning at both ends in a safe, productive way. 

Tammy couldn’t even think straight anymore, watching Deb’s reaction to the stretch, how tenderly Lou seemed to take care of her in the act. 

The way they spoke to each other while saying nothing. 

Moments later, overpowered by the talent of Debbie’s tongue and lips, there were parts of her that had never even been touched. Lou gripped Debbie’s hips firmly, using gentle thrusts, before withdrawing completely and sliding in again. 

Tammy put her hands in Deb’s hair and brought her forward, addressing them both. “I’m not saying I graduated until Lou fucks me like that, and until I know what you taste like.”

“Say the words, Tam.” Deb tucked a strand of her own hair behind her ear when Lou pulled out, the two of them already on their way to losing their breath. 

The room was spinning. Lou was so gentle, yet so firm, and Debbie didn’t know if she’d ever had experience so close to what old couples called ‘making love’ before this. Maybe she’d just never truly trusted anybody before Lou. Or known anyone as long as either of them.

Lou teased into her cunt with her experienced tongue, to which Deb responded with a high pitched whine. “My God, Lou….”

“Now, we mustn’t blaspheme,” the blonde said as she wiped her mouth and spanked her one more time for good measure. 

Lou never thought she’d be able to say she’d tasted her best friend. She was lightheaded. Her knees didn’t feel real. She couldn’t even remember if they’d taken drugs, or not. Something felt very, very wrong, but very, _very_ right.

“Sit on my face, Deb,” Tammy said timidly, as though the words didn’t belong in her mouth.

“Gladly,” her friend replied. 

Tammy slid down and guided Debbie’s hips over her face, after which she promptly took control. At least at that end of her body. 

Her legs were lifted into the air, draped over the crooks of Lou’s arms, before she tuned into the thick, throbbing sensation of what was stretching her to her limit. Until she realized, there didn’t seem to be a limit at all. 

How was this thing even _fitting?_ Had she really been _that wet?_ How could it be _that amazing?_

Lou took agonizingly slow thrusts that made Tammy cry out, the warm vibrations shooting through her and against Deb’s pussy. 

In response to her lover’s noises, and driven by the raw adrenaline of fucking a woman who’d never been fucked like this before, Lou gained in speed to power through the haze.

For she now had two women to please, and she was good at multitasking. 

Tammy squealed as Lou bucked her hips forward deeply, hitting a place inside of her that, to Tammy, felt like a hidden secret that needed to be shared and frequented. But between Debbie’s thighs, she could only whine, her voice cracking.

“It sounds like you might like that,” Lou purred. To her sheer elation, both women before her responded with matching moans of unbridled filth. 

Lou drove her cock into Tammy’s pussy as though it were as simple as breathing. Debbie’s hips rolled repetitively, hypnotizing Lou’s tipsy eyesight from where she watched behind her, and threw her head back in a sharp whine. 

But something in Deb told her not to finish. She could tell Tammy was close, so she resorted to kissing her neck and doting upon her breasts. Tammy made eye contact with Lou, who held her thighs with such wealthy possession that for a moment, she could see why they’d had so many strange female visitors in their house in the evenings. 

“Are you gonna come for me, Tam?”

Tammy just watched, her eyes glazed over as the cock slammed into her over and over again. “Yes, fuck…right there…oh my god, I’m coming, don’t stop - ” 

Lou could feel the edge, but something felt infinitely wrong about sharing that particular moment with Tammy. Maybe friends could fuck, but orgasms were personal. And that certainly didn’t stop the redhead. 

Tammy fell apart around the shaft of Lou’s cock, with Debbie’s filthy words in her ear to ease her down, and to their surprise, her orgasm brought forth what would become Tammy’s _very_ private nickname from that day forward.

“I fucking knew you were a squirter,” Debbie whispered as Tammy caught her breath again, and the three of them laughed. 

Tammy, being a neat-freak, insisted that she clean herself immediately. “That was out of this world. And I am covered in my own juices _._ ”

She’d never felt more alive as she padded into the bathroom, soles soft and vulnerable against the hotel bathroom tile. She ran the water.

Outside, Lou removed the harness and left it on one of their towels until she could get into the bathroom. Debbie grabbed the makeup wipes from her bag and scooched back on the bed, tucking herself under the covers.

“Pssst,” she whispered to Lou.

The tired, lanky blonde turned around, her hand mid-scratch in her hair. “What?” She smiled lazily. 

Debbie lifted the sheets and patted the smooth, empty space next to her. “Hi sleepy.”

Lou lifted her most obnoxious chains over her head and dropped them on the desk before bursting into intoxicated giggles. Debbie’s eyes brightened at the sound. “Now what?”

Lou took off her watch and crawled into bed next to her best friend. “Your hair, it’s - ”

“Fresh off the sex train going nowhere?” Debbie snorted. 

“It’s Fresh Prince certified fresh.”

They lost their breaths again in laughter, settling against the pillows. The room gradually became quiet again and Lou’s need to puke lessened every second.

“God, how many ceilings are there?” She asked.

Debbie took one of the wipes out of its package. “How drunk did you get?” She held one side of Lou’s face as she began to gently remove the flashy eye makeup that her best friend always showcased, and _always_ pulled off. She then passed her water bottle and waited for Lou to drink at least a quarter of it before she had to burp.

“That’s really not a good question to ask drunk people, silly.” 

Deb giggled. The makeup removal continued. Lou groaned comically at the feeling of the cool dampness of the cloth against her flushed face, and Debbie took her time getting rid of it all.

“What happens tomorrow?” Lou asked, already half asleep.

Debbie’s brow was furrowed in focus as she folded the wipe over to get the excess makeup from the corners of Lou’s eye. “Tomorrow, we sleep. That’s all for now.”

“Mmmm.”

Tammy emerged from the bathroom with her wet hair in a towel shaped like the drippy end of an ice cream cone, and she smiled at the sight of her friends. Of Lou nodding off as Debbie took care of her with such determination and gentleness. She made a bet with herself that someday, they would realize just how much they loved each other. But she knew them both too well, so it wouldn't be for several years. 

“Are we having a naked slumber party?” Tammy whispered as she turned the overhead lights off. 

Debbie grinned and gestured for her to join. “Who needs two king sized beds when you’re all gay? Get over here.”

“Who needs clothes when you could be naked? Are there even any other kinds of slumber parties?” 

‘All those boring straight ones we went to in middle school. Everyone in their matching pajama sets and sleeping bags. I never knew why I was always so tingly.”

Tammy chuckled as she climbed into bed on the other side of Lou, who had certainly taken the heaviest beating from the alcohol, and snuggled close. Debbie handed her another makeup wipe. 

Lou was snoring lightly now. Her two friends shared a loving look as they cleaned the rest of her makeup away. They watched her for a while. 

“Is this creepy? If she wakes up, she’s gonna think she’s about to get murdered.”

“Pretty sweet way to go, don’t you think?”

Tammy delivered a long sigh as she cleared the last bit of eyeliner from Lou’s baby-soft skin. “I can’t believe four years just went by.”

Debbie returned the package to the nightstand and switched off the lamp before snuggling closely into the crook of Lou’s neck. “It’s the end of an era, but it won’t be forever.”

“You promise?”

Debbie reached for her hand in the dark. “Promise.”

“Are we drunk?”

Lou joined the conversation in her deep sleep voice. “We’re drunk.”

Instead of laughing, her two friends just smiled as they scooched closer to the warm blonde between them, and Lou found both of their hands. 

Their fingers entwined, and as they each began to drift off, Lou added a sleepy, “Bingo.”

  
  



	7. The One With the Pillow Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a baby chapter for the morning after.

The three of them awoke in nearly the same positions at noon the following day. 

“Did we have sex last night?” Tammy asked, mumbling into her pillow.

Both Lou and Debbie groaned in response, tangled in each other’s naked limbs and hair far from looking lovely. 

“Squirter’s gotta piss again.” Tammy sat up and nearly fell out of the bed. “I’m okay.”

“Please don’t die,” Debbie called. 

Tammy just whistled and closed the bathroom door behind her.

Debbie snuggled closer with Lou’s arms around her. 

Lou’s voice tickled the skin of her chest. “I’m going to be grumpy today.”

Debbie smiled. “You declaring it doesn’t justify the fact that you’re grumpy every day.”

The girl in her arms giggled. “Shit.”

Lou stretched her long limbs out and Debbie yawned. Their sleepy eyes met after a moment.

“Can we agree that even though last night was awesome, it probably wouldn’t benefit our friendship if we ever did it again?”

Debbie laughed. “Yes, I agree. It was great, but sex without feelings just gets messy and complicated.”

“It might be best if we move past it.”

“Yeah. I love you, though.”

“I love you, bitch.”

Their eye contact was just a split second too long to still be between friends, but their abandoned-child instincts kept them on track. Tammy burst out of the bathroom and charged towards the bed with a maniacal scream. Debbie and Lou hid under the covers before the redhead started swatting at them with a pillow.

“This is our only chance to live out the sexy wet dream of every straight white man in America! FUCKING NAKED LESBIAN COLLEGE GIRL PILLOW FIGHT!”

The three of them all laughed and did exactly that. 

They left their hotel room an hour later, heads held high and dressed in their best, with feathers stuck where the sun doesn’t shine as friendly reminders of their last adventure together for a very long time. 


	8. The One With the Rough Patch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we all know what happens when a man gets between Thelma and Louise, and boy does he get between them.
> 
> that's really not a sex joke i'm just trying to emphasize

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to strip away the juicy fight scene I'd originally written here, hopefully will someday use that in a story with original characters, because that was hard to give up. It just didn't work for their new dynamic and I hope you enjoy what I've changed!

_2013 - The Rough Patch_

  
  


It had been sixteen years since their graduation, and Debbie and Lou truly lived like Thelma and Louise, minus the men and the double suicide, but _plus_ the baby blue vintage convertible which was courtesy of Danny as a gift. In exchange for the occasional joint job. Crashing in hotels across the United States, their jobs worked like clockwork and their earnings were heavy. At one point their designated market became hot with criminals, and they forced themselves to lay low in separate standard office jobs. The ladies were used to brutal summers, but the heat was manageable compared to repetitively mundane tasks. 

They began to understand what Tammy must’ve been living day-to-day with her mysterious and “confidential” job in New Jersey. For the first few years they reunited to celebrate New Years and birthdays, but eventually Tammy wrapped herself in her “job” and settled down with a wealthy European V-neck-wearing wheat germ-ingesting author that doubled as a professional soccer coach.

Tammy had always had a thing for legs.

When things cleared up, Thelma and Louise were able to call it quits. After Debbie’s birthday at the start of the current year, Lou wanted to slow down and take a bit of a holiday. They’d worked steadily for sixteen years, and had made enough money they were able to consider an early retirement at thirty-seven and thirty-eight years old. She wanted to focus on starting her own business, for which she’d been saving, and Debbie had the idea to venture into a job of her own. 

But despite that desire, Debbie Ocean didn’t like working alone. And Lou refused to do another job until she could get her affairs in order. 

Things very quickly went icy, and the skating rink was rough. Neither of them had ever been good at communicating their pain, or even discomfort, so as was true to many of their interactions, no words were spoken until something saw fit to blow up. 

Deb took a night to herself and went out for the evening.

She met Claude Becker at a high-end Manhattan bar. They flirted, and she settled with herself internally that she was okay with going home with a man who didn’t talk from his belly button.

Claude Becker seemed to talk from a place a few inches lower. 

She left the bar in a taxi with Claude, and spent the night with him. It was enjoyable, certainly, except for the horrid twisting in her stomach that seemed to only worsen with each drink. 

This continued for several nights and days and eventually _dates_ before she returned to talk with Lou at their shabby and very temporary retirement situation.

“I’ve started seeing someone. He has a job for me.”

Lou stood with her arms crossed, though Debbie caught the tension in her shoulders. “Who is he?”

“How’d you know it’s a ‘he’?”

Lou shrugged, moving to shuffle through their records. “Lucky guess.”

Deb straightened up, maintaining her guard as best she could. When Lou attacked, Lou attacked _hard._ And she could sense it from a mile away. “Claude Becker. He’s a painter. And Art Dealer.”

Lou turned to look at her. “You’re screwing a painter?” She asked quietly.

“Who said I’m screwing him?”

“Everybody’s screwing everybody these days, it’s not rocket science, and you haven’t been here to tell me otherwise.”

Deb’s mouth opened as Lou’s words hit. She didn’t like the way it tore into her. This wasn’t like Lou. Her mind reeled with concern and a sudden twist of fear. “Are you jealous that I’m spending time somewhere else?”

Lou did not hesitate, but she averted her eyes briefly. “No, we agreed we couldn’t get involved with each other like that. But you don’t trust people this easily, so I guess I just want to look out for you.”

She hadn’t meant it like _that,_ but that definitely seemed to make things hurt more. Some wall had constructed itself and was slowly crumbling down only to crush them both.

Debbie didn’t know when her tears had arrived. 

Lou looked at her for a long moment before letting out an exhausted, shaky sigh. “I don’t know this time, Debbie Ocean.” There was no smile. “I guess I just don’t know why you trust him.” 

“It’s not that big of a job. I’m sure you’re worried, but I want you to know that I’m not.”

They stood a few feet apart from each other, tense, cold, and defeated without even having an argument.

“Were you gonna see him tonight?”

“I was going to, but I think I need to be alone instead.”

“Well, don’t stop seeing him on my account.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said. You know me better than that.”

Debbie inhaled sharply. “Well, maybe I find you pretty hard to talk to sometimes.” That was a lie. Lou was the easiest person to talk to. Her _favourite_ person to talk to. But obviously they disagreed. 

When Lou glanced at her again, her eyes were now shimmering reflections of the kitchen light. “Maybe I get it from you.”

Debbie pressed on. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s a fat lie, or you wouldn’t be standing there sorting our records by reverse alphabetical order.”

“Alright, I want a lot of things from you, but I know that you aren’t good at managing other people’s expectations of you so I’m just keeping my mouth shut!”

“Okay. That’s fine with me.”

“Fine.”

Deb acknowledged the simple word, but she caught a glimpse of remorse in Lou’s icy hot blue eyes. She berated herself for even waiting, hesitating to see if maybe somehow they could keep talking, and break through this horrible, cold, and angry wall. If only there was something within herself that could recognize what their deeper problem was. How could she solve it if she didn’t even know what there was to solve? 

But neither of them had been equipped with the tools to solve anything right now.

Seeing no willingness to continue the conversation in her best friend’s position, Debbie turned and slowly headed towards the door.

Lou lunged forward with her giraffe legs and took Debbie’s hand, pulling her back into a desperate embrace.

“I don’t know what just happened,” Debbie mumbled against Lou’s collar. “But I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

Debbie took her head in her hands and gave her a firm look. “We’ve been living our truths for the last sixteen years. They’re just not the same right now. And that’s okay.”

“If you go to prison, I would be a first-class idiot thinking even for a minute that I should be in there with you,” Lou warned, but with a playful glow in her voice.

Debbie smiled. “You’re a first-class idiot thinking you could ever get rid of me that easy.”


	9. The One With the Black Sequin Dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2013\. A royal send-off. A theoretical boat launch, if you will. A very long, concrete wall field trip. But this time there are no Graham Crackers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~ this one time, at Bible camp ~ we were told we could each have ONE Graham Cracker from the package being passed around, but I didn't hear them because I was a starving seven year old so a MF took FOUR. Someone snitched on me but I didn't know what was going on so I just shoved them all into my mouth and that's the news

Debbie didn’t like change, but she began to enjoy playing for Claude Becker’s team. He was good in the kitchen (and surprisingly decent for a man in the bedroom) and he, too, was good at what he did. It was intriguing, discovering new ways to do things. 

But she couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling of no longer working with Lou. Debbie imagined how busy she must’ve been getting her business on its feet, and Lou could only imagine Debbie getting busy on her back. Or from behind, as she often liked it. Lou didn’t like to imagine it, but semi-retirement offered her a lot of free time. 

Debbie’s eyes snapped shut as she buried her head in one of Claude’s pillows, avoiding the confrontation of exactly what she was doing. Hearing herself giving her body to someone who didn’t know her, she was finally hit with how horribly wrong it all was. How wrong it had been for sixteen years. Perhaps she liked it from behind because it led her to believe it could be anyone, and reminded her of one of the best nights she’d ever experienced. 

And for the first time in her life, Debbie Ocean truly felt like a criminal. 

Three days after their “friendly separation”, Lou received a call from the Nicolls Women’s Prison.

The moment she heard Debbie’s voice, exhausted and aloof, Lou collapsed on the couch.

“I made it,” was all her best friend said. 

Lou just laughed. “Ferris Bueller, you’re my hero.”

When Debbie’s silly exhale came through the phone, it sounded like she hadn’t smiled or had a happy thought in several hours. But that was the sort of thing only Lou could have noticed.

Her brain was trying to process a million thoughts at once, not even registering what this meant for the future. All that seemed to be going through her head was, _I’m gonna rip his dick off and feed it to the merciless cancel culture of Montreal Gays. Not Lesbians, but the Gays._

“What’s your next move, Ocean?”

A deep, crackly breath on the end of the line. “I’m not really sure what happens next. I’m essentially just being held here until I say I’m guilty. It’s kind of silly, really, they already know I’m guilty, why don’t they just arrest me and save me from all this extra time worrying about whether or not they’re going to arrest me?”

Lou closed her eyes, swearing she could feel the air of Debbie’s breaths on her cheek. It made her stomach ache. 

“At least let me come and take your picture for commemoration.”

“No, Lou, I don’t want you to see this place. Lou Miller doesn’t belong in a concrete hell box.”

“Yeah, well, neither does Debbie Ocean, so tough shit.”

Debbie sighed. “I’ve made my bed, Lou, now I need to just lie there for a few years.”

A nostalgic smile tickled at Lou’s lips. “Then I’ll be there in an hour to tuck you in.”

They hung up, and Debbie leaned against the wall with her heart in her throat and that goofy grin on her face that high school girls get when the head of the football team makes eye contact with them. _Me being arrested is fair compared to how fucking whip smart Lou Miller is._

There wasn't a single dull bone in that woman's body.

The blonde arrived less than an hour later, a collection of pictures in an envelope under her arm as she entered the prison.

She went through security after stating her reason for visiting, and watched nervously as an officer looked through the envelope. Lou was impatient.

“Can I see her?”

The man looked up, bored, and in no particular rush. 

“She your girlfriend?” A question more out of sick fantasy than genuine curiosity. 

Lou replied quietly. “Best friend.”

The guard didn’t seem convinced. “You sure? You aren’t getting a piece of that?” He held up the photo of Lou sleeping, in which it was implied that she was naked, though only her collarbone showed. They’d been naked together too many times to count, but the ‘sex’ part got left behind in that hotel from sixteen years ago. His eyes found another more intimate photo of the two of them. “Is she single?”

Lou rolled her eyes. “Please just let me go in and see her.”

She would’ve snapped at him for being nosy and disgusting and unprofessional, but she didn’t want to risk being kicked out for seeming like a threat. She could play nice when her time with Deb was at stake. The slightest bit of arrogance was life or death.

She passed through a sliding metal door and was led into a larger room with four holding cells and the wall phone Deb likely used to call her. Deb looked up when she heard the door slam, an annoying buzzer going off. Those brown eyes lit up and she walked quickly to the metal bars. Her face was pale, and her voice could barely muster an audible greeting, but her spirit was confident. They smiled at each other. Neither of them thought it was protocol, but suddenly the gate opened, and they were permitted to embrace. 

“So sorry I missed your Walk of Shame,” Lou commented dryly as her fingernails raked through the sequins on the back of Debbie’s dress.

“I finally have something to write home about,” the brunette replied into Lou’s shoulder. They only held the moment for five horribly short seconds before one of the officers yelled at them to separate. So there it was.

Lou handed her the envelope. “I brought you some photos from home.”

But Debbie didn’t open it. Her eyes were dreamy, and distantly foggy. “I’m gonna have a lot of time to just sit and stare at these, right now I just want to look at you.”

They heard a small ‘awww’ and turned to see one of the guards turn beet red. “Alright, wrap it up,” he said loudly.

Debbie shifted her weight. “I’m looking forward to visiting your club every night.”

“They’ll know when you’re coming. Just, you know, call and make a reservation first.”

They shared the joke in the tautness of their cheekbones and the trust in their eyes. Deb let them be separated, allowing herself to be put back in her cell, her hand slipping away from Lou’s and she watched as the blonde walked backwards toward the exit, led by one of the guards.

“My door’s always open, jailbird,” she said with a delightfully facetious wink. “Feel free to visit anytime.”

The last thing Lou saw was Debbie Ocean’s mischievous smirk and in an instant she knew that her instincts to not worry about her were right. Deb was already working through her next big job. It was natural. She had all the time in the world and no consequences for her thoughts.

Debbie sank down on the cold metal bench inside her cell and picked at her dress from the night before. She couldn’t _wait_ to change into the horrid polyester jumpsuit that awaited her, for at least it would be clean. 

She heard Lou’s heels clacking in long strides down the hallway and through more electronic gates. But _God,_ now was the worst time for both of them to recognize that since Lou threw her that curveball, their relationship would someday be fated to take more than one form.


	10. The One With the German and Swedish Art Films

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some periodical visits to Debbie in prison, and updates on Lou's thriving new business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> k so fittingly just started re-watching Orange is the New Black last night, honestly not even on purpose but I just happened to be writing these scenes during Piper x Larry's visits. Also I miss Vauseman. Don't like Larry one bit. PS!! Personal update!! I'm starting my new year's resolution right now and deciding I'm going to swear less this year. I'm going to work on developing new vocabulary to use instead of standard swear words. I feel that they're getting tired and they are extremely overused, especially by me, so they've lost their intensity and meaning. Anyway, that's that for me!

Six months later, their visits had fallen into a steady routine of once every two or four weeks, for they were only scheduled in fourteen-day intervals. Once Deb was settled and received some mercy on her privileges, they would talk on the phone. Sometimes 10 minutes was all they needed. There wasn’t much to talk about, but it was heavenly to hear each other exist.

Lou arrived on a Thursday afternoon, her hair longer than it had been, her bangs untrimmed but she was still somehow able to see. She sat across from Deb in the common room, surrounded by her fellow inmates and their visitors. Lou tried very hard to get her legs remotely comfortable underneath the sticky plastic table.

“You know, they didn’t frisk me as hard as I thought. I was ready to bend and snap.”

“How’s the club? Sick of paperwork yet?”

Lou’s eyes darted around the room. “I haven’t stolen anything during our retirement yet, so I guess having something else to work towards is nice.”

“Can I see pictures?” 

The blonde pulled out her phone and swiped through a small collection of photos from the day of the building inspection. 

“Is that where you’ll do your Powerpoint presentations?” Debbie asked with a playful glint in her eye, referring to the large screen that took up most of one warehouse wall.

“Yeah, but only until eleven, or they’ll start throwing the tomatoes. After that it’s gonna play old foreign films on a loop with no sound. That’ll be most of the light for the ground floor.”

Debbie gave a small gasp. “ _De Düva_?”

Lou grinned, putting the phone away. “ _De Düva._ ”

“And _Der Blaue Engel_?”

“In all its horrifically sexualized glory.”

“You wrote such a wonderful essay on that in our first year. Top notch analytics.”

“I still have that polaroid of your notes after the screening.”

“I wish I still had that sense of defying all rules of lined paper.”

“You certainly haven’t lost your sense of defying rules.”

“You sound like the lawyer that I don’t have.”

The blonde chewed the inside of her lip. “I'd be a pretty useless lawyer. I'd just flirt with our opponents.” She put her hand over Debbie’s, but watched their fingers rather than her face. 

_“No touching.”_

The kind of details that Debbie Ocean noticed included when Lou’s shell hardened, even in the least noticeable way. 

The pain of restraint ricocheted through them both as their hands separated, and they were quiet for a few moments.

“What are you doing to pass the time?” Lou asked in turn.

Deb smirked. “Thinking.”

They had nothing to lose. Lou shrugged. “What about?”

“That, Louise Elizabeth June Miller, is a surprise.”

Lou smiled. “I like surprises.”

“I keep to myself as much as I can. Avoid getting involved. But if I keep to myself too much, people start to notice that too. It’s all about balance.”

“What a fine little enigma you are, Ocean,” Lou marvelled. 

Deb nodded. “I get it from you, baby,” she played. 

Lou’s heart longed to be able to touch her unsupervised, to order takeout together and watch Judge Judy naked and be retired. 

But they had never been that poetic. They both, within the privacy of their own minds, hoped that could change. But it would take several more years to even admit it to themselves. 

“Visiting time’s up, inmates return to your cells.”

The officer’s voice startled Lou again. They supposed it was better this way, not disclosing their true feelings, so there was less pain found in not being able to be together. But the pain seemed ubiquitous, no matter what.

Reluctantly, they got to their feet and embraced as long as they could before they were forced to separate again. Lou still smelled like Lou, even more so, and Debbie still smelled like Debbie. That was enough. 

Deb watched as Lou left, sadness filling her heart again, but she forced herself to get back into her thoughts. Thinking about Lou, about anybody, had to be avoided if she ever wanted to be free. This was her mission. Whatever got her through every minute of every hour of every day.

But to console herself, she opened the envelope of pictures when she returned to her cell. 

Tammy, Lou, and Debbie at their grad formal in Seersucker suits.

Lou half-asleep, snuggled into Tammy’s armpit, the morning after their Bingo adventure. 

Debbie driving Danny’s baby blue convertible on their first drive to California. 

A picture of Danny as she remembered him best. Lou had told him the news, but Debbie hadn’t heard anything. _He’s either_ _dead or undercover._

If it was the former, she would have no choice but to forgive him. 

____________________

Once one year had passed. Debbie wound herself up in an incident that occurred, strategically placing herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. She and three other inmates were sent to Maximum Security temporarily. While ‘temporarily’ was still going to be a few weeks, it didn’t matter to Deb. In fact, it was better. Less noise. More time alone. That’s what she craved.

The day of Lou’s next visit, the buzzer sounded for the doors to open. There had been no visits in nearly two months. The year had consisted of Lou finally opening her nightclub. 

Deb was led to one of the booths with a dirty glass panel and a telephone on either side. Lou had already picked up her end and was staring at Debbie in her orange jumpsuit. 

Their eyes delivered six or seven unspoken but charismatic lines of witty banter over the span of thirty seconds before Lou said, “Orange is definitely not your colour.”

Deb leaned forward, on the edge of her seat. “This outfit would definitely look better on the floor, wouldn’t it?”

Lou grimaced down at the linoleum. “Floor’s pretty nasty here.”

“Watch it. I clean those.”

They smiled at each other, missing such a moment. Deb’s eyes sparkled still, and Lou noticed.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Debbie said.

“Me too.”

For the remaining nine minutes, there were no more words, and no touching allowed. 

Except for the feet of two old friends, brushing against one another under the cheap, sticky, plastic table, and over the freshly cleaned, off-white linoleum floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very excited to share the next chapter with you!! SO. PLEASED. With how this new version is adapting. Thank you for reading!


	11. The One With April (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2014\. With her brand new club running smoothly, Lou tries her hand at casual sex for the first time in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun adapting this one. Thank you Cate Blanchett for wiping Midori Francis' mouth. I've taken that and gone fucking running with it.

Red and navy paired well on Lou, as long as they were complimented with her token gold jewellery. 

There were several young queer people hired since the club’s opening. In her experience, their particular tastes didn’t seem to stand in the way of anything, for people of all genders and identities tended to fall for her anyway. Tonight she was feeling generous.

It was past eleven when she entered the building, passing the politely designated Powerpoint screen and the crowd on the dance floor, heading upstairs to where three of her employees were sorting cocktail napkins.

“What kind of party is this and why the hell wasn’t I invited?” She stood in the doorway, spinning her keys once before putting them in the pocket of her blazer.

“The bartender just handed us these boxes and said they had gotten mixed up with Christmas napkins. They made it seem like a pretty big priority,” one of the louder, obnoxious women spoke.

The name of the quietest came to her. “April,” Lou tried.

The small dark-haired girl in a Carhartt beanie looked up in response, smiling and, to Lou’s pleasure, blushing. 

“Yes?” It appeared she did not expect Lou to know her name.

Lou gestured with her head to follow her. “Come downstairs for a minute, I’ll buy you a drink.”

April was surprised. She paused for a moment before the two other women were whispering, wide eyed, for her to go. It was allegedly a life achievement to be invited for a drink by the real man of the house.

She followed Lou downstairs and they sat at the bar.

They gave Lou her usual, whiskey and ginger ale, and April asked politely for ‘vodka with cranberries’.

Lou leaned on the bar and raked over the intoxicating atmosphere that she proudly owned.

“Not a big drinker, are you?” She asked April over the throbbing music.

April laughed nervously. “Not as big as I probably should be for this job.”

Lou just nodded, taking a swig of her drink. “That’s relative.”

“If I’m being honest, I’m surprised you even knew my name.”

“I tend to notice the good ones. You like it here?”

Lou saw April become visibly fidgety, even in the near-dark. “Oh, yeah, it’s a great job, and great people.”

The blonde smiled and offered a toothpick umbrella for April’s glass. “I meant the club in general, forget about what it’s like as a job.”

The girl relaxed slightly, accepting the offer. “Oh, of course. I love it here. My friends, too. We come here whenever I’m not working. It’s really great to have a gay bar that’s not explicitly gay, so there’s something - someone - for everyone. That’s how I see it, anyways.”

Lou nodded. “You like women, April?”

The girl in the beanie choked on her drink. Lou leaned across and wiped the corner of her mouth with her fingers, raising her eyebrows.

“One of those napkins might’ve come in handy right about now.”

April laughed breathily, a hot pink rising into her cheeks. “Yes, I like women. I like anybody, really.”

Lou smiled, satisfied thus far. “You’re a good kid. An asset to the company. I know I don’t want to lose that - ”

“I don’t believe in love,” April cut her off.

Lou paused. “Come again?”

April blanched and resorted to chugging the rest of her drink. 

Lou waited for her to finish.

The girl swallowed and answered. “No, I’m sorry, I thought you were flirting with me and then you started to talk about how you don’t want to lose me as an employee and I figured that’s what’s at risk if we slept together because I’m a susceptible millennial and you’re such a beautiful, hot, wise goddess who obviously knows a thing or two about flirting whereas I clearly don’t so I cut to the chase and said that I don’t believe in love so there’s no need to worry about me getting attached if all you want is a one night stand or a two night stand or a no night stand or whatever.”

Lou stared at her blankly before gesturing to ask for another refill on April’s drink. 

April glanced at the bartender before looking back at Lou, a little out of breath. “Sorry, I may look quiet on the outside but once I get the wrong idea or say the wrong thing I really don’t know how to shut up.”

Lou shifted her jaw, her lips poised at the edge of her glass. “You want me to help you with that?” She finished it with ease.

April nodded in confirmation that this was truly happening and she downed another vodka cranberry before taking the hand that Lou had offered, hopping off of the barstool. 

**___________________**

  
  


Lou led her back upstairs, past the glass room where the other two women had been and into another room marked  _ employees only.  _ But it was only Lou who had the key. 

“I just thought this was a broom closet,” April began to say before they entered the room.

“It is,” Lou said, suppressing a laugh when the door was opened she turned the light on. 

“Classy.”

“There’ll be a speakeasy through here,” Lou said, tapping her knuckles on the hollow wooden wall. “But this whole place is practically a speakeasy already, so it’ll probably fall through.”

“I love it when you talk business plans with me.”

April rushed forward and kissed Lou, who promptly put her hands on her hips and pushed her back against the door. She tasted like saccharine fruit and the sourness of vodka.

Though it was too similar to her younger self - April was so eager to hook up yet was so blind to the emotional baggage behind it all. 

“You’re sure you want to do this?” She whispered against April’s lips and April nodded, gripping at Lou’s shoulders to pull her closer. She wrapped her legs around the taller woman when arms hoisted her into the air. The girl rolled her hips against her.

“How old are you?” Lou pulled back, having to hold April’s face with one hand to stall her feverish kisses for a moment.

April gave a playful eye roll. “I’ll be twenty-five in a month. Why, is that weird for you?”

Lou hesitated. She couldn’t believe she was actually doing this. 

“It’s only weird if you roll your eyes at me,” she said. “I’m not your fucking daddy.”  _ However... _

April held a hand to Lou’s chest, playing with the tangle of necklaces and chains around her neck.

“What if I want you to be?”

Lou had to admit, it was a weak spot. Something about a twenty-something year old falling apart on her command, in an entirely derogatory and perverted way. After all, she was twenty-something only ten years ago. She was all in.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart,” Lou said softly.

April begged for another desperate kiss, their tongues loose and erotic. Lou’s hands travelled up her sides and she ran her thumbs over the girl’s breasts, eliciting a tight moan, and Lou couldn’t help but smirk. Her lips wandered down April’s neck and left a small bite mark before the younger girl wanted to kiss her again. “Tell daddy what she wants to hear,” Lou purred. 

“You’re a really fucking good kisser,” April panted wildly, her acrylic nails digging into Lou’s back - she could feel them through every layer she wore.

Lou growled in response, kissing her harder as her fingers found the waistband of April’s jeans. The girl closed her eyes, biting her lip as Lou unfastened them with ease and softly moved two fingers to either side of her clit. 

The brunette gasped and slammed a fist against the door, angling her hips forward sharply. Lou bit lightly along her jawline, kissing behind her ear and along the line of her neck. Her free arm worked itself under the girl’s shirt and took one of her breasts in her hand, feeling her nipple piercings. Feeling April’s hips stuttering and her breathing becoming sporadic, the blonde’s fingers slipped inside her.

April practically screamed as her fingers worked harder. Lou’s lips parted, only centimetres away from April’s, teasing her, watching her with apparent fascination as she approached some kind of dramatic finish. 

“Yes, YES. That’s it, daddy, fuck, that’s so fucking good,” April whined. To Lou, it felt like the only redeemable line in a bad movie. Some part of her felt completely detached from this particular realm of reality. 

She felt April pulse with slick heat around her fingers and it drove Lou up the wall with the devastating sensation of arousal. She pressed on. “What a good girl you are. Go on, show daddy how hard you can come.”

April came loud and hard before Lou could stop, double fisting Lou’s hair and Lou had to kiss her just to shut her up, as expected.

Her muscles tightened so deeply, Lou feared her hand would get stuck. She marvelled at the twenty-five-year-old physique, waiting for the girl’s body to relax before she could release her fingers, and April got two feet back on the ground again. 

“Wow,” April gasped. “Can I - ”

Lou didn’t say anything as April took her fingers, rings and all, and sucked them practically dry. 

Her eye contact was young, na ï ve, and full of clueless aspiration that would one day be able to settle and turn to the one thing that truly made her happy. Right now the world was her oyster, and Lou missed that. 

“If you need a minute, let me know.”

“No, I’m good, that was…fuck, that was great. I’d really like to return the favour.”

“Done.”

“Alright.”

Perhaps it was April’s sickening puppy-dog eyes and long lashes and adorable beanie and her familiar eagerness to pay it forward. Or pay it back. She figured that April might surprise her and not be as inexperienced as she seemed. And Lou needed to get fucked out of her mind. Immediately. 

It was a risk she was willing to take.

April walked out of the supply closet first, Lou locking the door behind her. The two other women from the napkin sorting pretended to walk towards them. Lou could see right through it.

One of them spoke to April. “Oh hey, Scoot, we were just looking for you.”

April just blushed and smiled, walking right past them. They turned their attention to Lou, approaching casually behind her, twirling her keys in her hand. “Show’s over, ladies.” 

She drove April back to the loft in her car, on which April commented, “Okay, I definitely saw you driving something a little more  _ James Bond _ than this.”

“First of all, don’t you even think about knocking Toyota. And second, I’m waiting on a bike instead. This is just a placeholder. He’s one of the only loyal men I’ve ever known in my life.”

“I’ve got a bike,” April said.

Lou gave her a glance, suddenly bursting with a goofy, childish kind of envy. “What kind?”

“Kawasaki Ninja. It’s hot pink.” 

Lou laughed. “No way. No way you can afford that working at my bar. And tell me, no judgement, but what is it with millennials and the colour pink? Have you regressed into your childhood parallel with the repetitive trends in some kind of phasic cycle?”

April liked the way Lou talked. “It was a hand me down. I paid practically nothing for it, but it’s in really good shape.”

Lou shook her head in disbelief. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

They arrived at the apartment and she led April into her bedroom. As Lou put away her effects, April saw a picture of her and Deb on the wall.

“Who’s this?”

Lou sighed as she took off her tie. 

“We’ve been best friends for twenty years.”

“The way she’s looking at you. You must really love each other.”

“Yeah, well, now she’s in prison for the next four years, so the ‘love’ part is a little complicated. I’m really not in the mood to talk about ‘complicated’ right now.”

“I’m sorry to hear she’s in prison. That must be really hard for both of you. Especially after twenty years together.” April weighed the options. “But if you take off your clothes and get on that bed I can try to take your mind off ‘complicated’.”

Lou raised her eyebrows. “I like your thinking.”

April closed the distance between them and gently pushed Lou back onto the bed. As the younger woman straddled her hips, kissing Lou’s neck like it was holy ground, Lou let herself fall into the feeling for a moment. 

“April,” Lou whispered, her name like a foreign language on her lips.

“Mhm?” The girl answered against her skin.

“I need you to fuck me.”

“I was planning on it…”

“No, I mean, like really fuck me. Harder than you think ‘hard’ probably should be. Hell, hurt me, if you feel so inclined. Can you do that for me?”

When Lou felt April’s hips rolling gently against her, she almost  _ hated  _ how good it felt - being touched this way by another person after going so long without it was undeniably overwhelming. It had been an entire year without  _ anyone.  _

She didn’t like mixing sex with work. Her business had taken priority, and her primal instincts were buckled far in the very backseat of her psychological minivan. 

April nodded. “Yes I can.”

No woman younger than thirty had ever been in Lou’s bed. Except for when Lou, herself, was younger than thirty. Admittedly, it was nice to get out of her retirement head for a while and briefly have a taste of college graduate stamina. Even though that was a textbook oxymoron.

The youth of today are severely misunderstood, and misunder-heard. Lou could put aside her aging cynicism for the sake of a good, old-fashioned one night stand. With her employee. 

After over three-hundred-and-sixty-five days, mountains of gruelling paperwork, and visits to her best friend in prison, sex was foreign. 

But Lou was definitely still good at it. 

She liked women with thoughtful, clever eyes that sparkled, with a quietness about them that provided a camouflaging advantage to unwanted predators. It was like Christmas morning when the quiet ones turned into throbbing, thrashing, writhing, screaming messes at the twist and curl of her fingers and the firm but gentle caress of her cultivated mouth.

She’d forgotten how much power rested in the act of making someone come like that. Fingers were always a lot less personal. 

But having someone, a twenty-something, no less, turn the tables and had Lou on her back, trembling with the power of her orgasm. “Where’d you learn to fuck like that?” 

“The education system is corrupt.” April wiped her mouth politely. “I’m self-taught.”

No more questions were asked. Except for the proposal of a joint shower.

With April happily clean and asleep, Lou put on one of Deb’s sweaters and went into the living room, grabbing a cider out of the fridge and finding a cozy place on the couch. She rolled two joints, as she often did when Deb had been around, where she would wait for her partner to smell the first one before she wandered in looking to join her.

She turned on Judge Judy to enjoy while she started on the first joint. She decided to save the second one and tucked it away safely. 

She had gotten laid, she had a good buzz going, and everything was hazy. For the first time in nearly two years, her mind was calm. 

The past twelve months had consisted of Lou becoming an expert in bottling up her feelings and getting drunk on them later. Eventually she passed out, exhausted, on her couch and dreamed of the beach, fairy lights, a wheelchair, a black dress, a blood-stained shag carpet, and the ocean. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit can I get some angst for the table


	12. The One With April (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after, and then some.

She awoke fairly early the next morning, early considering how late she had been up, and didn’t check to see if April was awake. She figured she wasn’t. When Lou was twenty-five, she definitely wasn’t awake.

Now it was time for the best hangover food she could think of. 

When she heard April’s yawn, she turned around and glanced at her in the doorway. She was wearing one of Deb’s robes. 

Which was technically Lou’s robe that Debbie had adopted. Lou’s stomach still tightened. Hoping to not make it weird, she simply avoided eye contact. “You look cute in that.”

April seemed to forget she was wearing anything. “Oh! Sorry...I mean, thank you...I hope it’s okay. I can’t be trusted to put on jeans before eleven o’clock.”

Lou exhaled in a small laugh. “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Good.”

Lou put a plate of food down in front of April at the island in the kitchen and left her to eat it. 

She began cleaning up the mess she had made the night before; she had left her weed and her booze out on the coffee table along with the ashes. A small part of her worried that if she let April keep her job at the club, she would forget what she had said about love and become attached. Perhaps she would start thinking she had been promoted because she had fucked the boss. Start calling her pet names and asking her things like “are you okay?” 

She supposed if April was at all immature and truly backstabbing, if she didn’t like what Lou told her, she could always file a lawsuit against her claiming that the encounter was non-consensual or fit into any other form of workplace harassment. She knew she didn’t want to end up in jail, despite the chance that she would be with Deb. It just wouldn’t be the same. _They_ wouldn’t be the same. In fact, she reasoned it would put even more strain on the relationship. Plus, no one would visit them. They were all each other had. How long would Lou be in there? What would Deb do if she got out first? They’d start all over again. 

But she hadn’t had sex in a _year._

“Hey, Lou,” April began, already half finished with her food.

“Mhm?”

“Can you tell me more about this best friend of yours?”

Lou stood up straight. “Why?”

“I don’t know, you just always seem to like being alone, so I’m curious what it’s like when you’re with her.”

“Okay, let me just think about that for a second.” _God,_ she sounded like her mother. Why that had to be one of the only strong memories she had of her mother, she did not know. 

Lou only further immersed herself in her cleaning, and April saw right through it. “So who is she?”

It was a simple question, and asked in a smarter way than Lou anticipated. April didn’t mean who Deb was as a person, she was pushing Lou to just come out and say the first thing that popped into her head, for her own sake.

“She’s a lot of things. She’s been my best friend for the last twenty years. We met in university. We’ve done everything, been everywhere together. Of course I mean the figurative ‘everything, everywhere’, but that’s everything to two kids who grew up without mothers. We had so much fun. We worked together like clockwork in every aspect of our friendship.”

April was wide-eyed. She had stopped eating completely. 

“What happened?”

“About a year ago she started seeing this guy, a painter, not a great one, mind you, in more of a business attraction, but she ended up telling me she was sleeping with him after a few weeks. At that time, I couldn’t fully identify why it bothered me. But I wanted to focus on my business and she wanted to continue...working...but that was the first job she’d ever taken without me. So we were a little angry, but we came to our senses and went after different things for the first time in twenty years. I guess it was bound to happen eventually.”

“Why do you say that?”

Lou smiled, looking down at the gnarled wooden countertop. “In my experience, that’s just what happens when you love someone that much.”

“Oh, I see.” The girl understood.

“It was three days later when she called me to say she was facing six years in jail for fraud. He framed her.”

April’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”

“I guess when you have a fucked up childhood where nobody tells you that love exists outside your own family, and even there nobody ever expresses it, you might end up having some trouble coming to terms with your feelings for another person.”

“Wow.” April took a breath. “Fuck, Lou, you’ve been through the emotional wringer, haven’t you?”

“I’ve seen better days.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re all anybody talks about at work. Everybody wants to be where I was last night. And this morning. Honestly, straight girls, gay guys, they all swoon for you. No joke. So I’m honoured. You could murder me in cold blood and I’d be honoured.”

Lou gave her a small smile and brushed her cheek lightly with her fingers. “I notice you, I notice all my good people. I notice the bad ones too. But you’re smart. And funny. And you’re beautiful. You’ve got very pretty eyes. And I had a good time last night, I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

April smiled. “I think I’m set for life on nights out. I’d honestly become a nun tomorrow if I had to. You are just…like, really, really good at sex. I came _four_ times last night. Congratulations.”

Lou laughed. “It was fun to watch.”

A moment passed. “Is this Debbie’s robe?” She caught Lou’s eyes flickering down to the material again.

Lou took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, staring at the fabric. “Yes.” She took a step toward April, but was unhurried in the act. “And I’d like you to take it off.”

For a moment, April flushed with embarrassment, until she saw the gentleness in Lou’s eyes and the flash of something else entirely. She closed the gap between them, their lips meeting with a tender sigh. But quickly she pulled away in realization.

“You haven’t eaten yet.”

Lou cupped her ass, hoisting her into her arms. “I’m about to eat you on my couch, does that count?”

April shrieked as she was set down on the plush cushions, but didn’t protest as Lou undid the ties of her robe, kissing between her breasts and her hips. “The bedroom is _right_ there.” April squirmed in pleasure. 

“Mhmm, and your pussy is _right_ here," Lou purred.

The younger woman had no time to respond as Lou’s tongue ran circles directly at her entrance before sliding all the way up just shy of her clit. 

The white satin robe had fallen down April’s shoulders as her fingers raked through Lou’s hair hungrily. Lou lifted her hips forward, diving in deeper as April moaned, “Mmm...oh my God, Lou.”

“You’re so nice and wet for me, aren’t you, baby?”

The girl squealed. “Yeah, I am, fuck. Fuck me just like that, daddy...” She rolled her entire body seeking further contact with the unjustly skilled mouth on her, her breathy whimpers inflating Lou’s ego so much it might’ve popped. The way she went to town on April, one might get the idea that she was making up for all the women she hadn’t fucked that year. And April delivered. 

Her thighs clenched against Lou’s head as she writhed and rocked her hips in unison with Lou’s tongue. The blonde seamlessly hooked her long middle finger inside of her, twisting it at the very last second as she muttered with hot breath, “Are you gonna be good for daddy and come when I tell you to?”

April opened her eyes, and Lou could already see that she was long gone. If she stopped now, the girl might’ve broken down in tears, and that would be a whole other dramatic event that Lou couldn’t handle before noon. “Please, daddy, let me come.”

Lou kissed between her hips and in the crook of her thigh. “No, I don’t think I will.”

The sound April made next could’ve been crying. “Lou, I need this so bad, please, I promise I’ll be good, I just need to cum for you.”

Lou’s finger slid in and out slowly, with a tantalizing pressure that had them both on edge. “Aw, for me?”

“I’ll be so good, I swear, I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it, please, please, _please,_ daddy.”

“Well, since you said ‘please’.”

“ _Please.”_

“Alright, baby girl. Come to me. Cum for daddy.”

The fingernails on her free hand dug into April’s thigh, the fingers inside her pumping as fast as they could go, and she licked at her with an increasing pressure that drove April high into the sky. 

And April's track and field thighs served as earplugs to the deafening scream that came from her mouth to sugarcoat the contraction of her hot, pulsing core. There was pounding fists on the wall behind her, followed by an aggressive, _“Shut the fuck up!”_

But Lou only worked her harder, so April only got louder. 

She floated on cloud nine for about fifteen whole seconds before her muscles gave clues for Lou to bring her down slowly. 

When she came up for air, April kissed her softly, and Lou politely lifted the robe back up over her shoulders and breasts, tying it at the waist.

“You’re fun to play with.”

April bit her lip. “This has been the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

“You’re twenty-five, you should be having nothing but fun all the time.”

“Au contraire. And since technically I’m not _quite_ twenty-five yet, maybe I’ll have more fun once I am.”

“Well I’m almost thirty-eight, and _I_ had a lot of fun with you, so I think it all comes down to who you surround yourself with.” Lou kissed her cheek. “Get dressed, sweetheart, and I’ll drive you home.”

  
  


_______________

  
  


In the Toyota, the radio was playing either “Chandelier” or “Shake It Off” on every station. Lou was about ready to rip the entire radio out of the car and chuck it out the window. Until April’s voice forced her to dial it down. 

“Are you gonna be upset if anyone at work finds out about this?”

“I think Rachel and Darcy will have told the whole country by now, so feel free to tell the truth.”

April nodded. “I know you’ve worked hard to get where you are, and I respect that, so I don’t want to tell anyone unless they ask and they’re someone I trust. Also, I’d like to keep my job, if that’s okay with you.”

Lou scoffed. “Baby, I knew what I was getting myself into by sleeping with you. If you still want the job, you’ve got it. Unless you say anything publicly that wasn’t true, obviously. Then I’ll probably murder you in cold blood, just like you imagined it.”

“But then at least you’d end up in prison with the love of your life.”

Lou shook her head, smirking. “Not funny.”

April nodded enthusiastically. “Deal. And I hope your girl gets out on good behaviour. Nobody deserves to lose their best friend.”

After April was dropped off, and Lou stuck her head out the window to check out her hot pink motorbike that was _very much real,_ they said goodbye and Lou drove home to the apartment.

Lou went into the bedroom, holding onto April’s words and letting them sink in before she collapsed on her bed, eyes landing on the picture of her and Deb that had started the whole conversation. It was from the brunette’s thirtieth birthday party, a rather candid shot of Debbie surprising Lou with an embrace from behind and a kiss on the cheek. They had been laughing and drinking, cheeks pink. She figured Danny had taken the photo. It was January the first. They had celebrated through New Years, by tradition.

Whenever they were both single, which was most of the time given their on-the-run lifestyle, they’d always kissed each other at midnight. Sometimes it was just a small peck on the lips, others it was hot and messy, but it always ended with a playful tousle of the hair or slap on the rear or one of them saying, “Happy New Year, smartass,” and that was that. Now, in the early afternoon sun that floated through the dark curtains and put a spotlight on the specks of dust in the air, Lou folded into herself with an overwhelming loneliness.

_No one deserves to lose their best friend._

Lou remembered how long it had been since she’d had a girl in her bed, but now, as her eyes grew hot, she couldn’t remember the last time she cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no shit to Sia or Taylor Swift, both great songs mentioned in this chapter, I was just going for the most overplayed songs of 2014, RIP simpler times. Also it's no secret that Lou would HATE those songs. Maybe a very guilty pleasure but only when she's very much alone. Idk. Tysm for reading!!!


	13. The One With the Moldy Meatloaf (Or Lack Thereof)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2015\. Debbie's in solitary. Lou's in her feelings. They're both in distress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi my lovelies!! I'm so sorry I haven't updated, I actually got so sucked into writing that I literally didn't realize I had almost four chapters worth to post! So updates comin in hot!! Thank you for reading :)

The concrete was cold under Debbie’s thighs, the feeling in her rear end having long since disappeared. 

She’d refused her second moldy tuna casserole in thirty-six hours. 

Besides the screaming and pounding of metal doors all around her, the noises in her stomach were the only company she had. That and her solitary confinement.

“Come on brain, think of things, come on brain, think of things,” she chanted half-heartedly to herself like a cheerleading squad at the opposite end of the field. 

She missed cheerleading. High school had been baseball, but university led to the squad with pompoms and braids. That had also been the start of her and Tammy’s bangs phase, much to the playful distaste of Lou. 

Debbie became cheer captain in their final year, and Lou and Tammy made a point to only attend sports games if they could sit in the front row and watch their best friend bounce around in a cute little skirt. It was entirely, and platonically, sexual. 

A voice floated through the vent behind her. “You didn’t eat your meatloaf again.”

It didn’t even surprise her. “It was tuna casserole this time, actually.”

“Pathetic excuse for a tuna casserole, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.”

“How much time do you have left?”

“Well, considering you’re probably a hallucination, it might not be safe for me to place any wagers on time right now.”

“Suit yourself.” The voice became muffled by the sound of eating something that could only be moldy meatloaf. The brunette’s throat was too dry to even gag. 

Her plan had been put on hold, and she had nothing to lose. Not even her sanity.

“If I am losing my mind, it’s about time,” she said cheerfully. “Been in here almost two years. Better get my money’s worth.”

There was scuffling on the other end of the vent and a sarcastic inflection in the person’s voice. “Oh, then you should definitely be getting a fucking room service menu for all the trouble you’re going through.”

Room service sounded heavenly. With Lou. And blankets. Naked. And fed. _Why was Lou always the person she imagined by her side in every possible future scenario? Why were they always naked in her mind? Did Lou think about them naked? However platonic?_ Even void of sex, besides Tammy on occasion, Lou was the only person with whom Debbie had ever been comfortable just lounging in her skin. How _satisfying_ it was to live with Lou and to co-exist with her. How much she missed her desperately. She wondered when she’d be allowed to have visitors again. There was only one that mattered.

“I feel like a part of me has been ripped out.” She didn’t expect a response. “It’s just empty.”

A distant sigh. “That’s what this place does to you. I’m surprised you’re just figuring it out now.”

“No. A person. My best friend.”

“That happens, too. Did they die?”

Debbie bit her lip as it began to tremble. “No, we just wanted different things.”

“They wanted freedom, you wanted solitary confinement? Classic.”

Unlike forcing herself, much like her first night at the Nicolls Women’s Prison, Debbie Ocean was overcome by a powerful, shuddering sob of loneliness and heartbreak, collapsing onto her side and curling up on the cold concrete floor. 

She didn’t hear the voice again.

A horrible blend of starvation, dehydration, boiling pressure, and icy numbness, somehow she dragged herself to the cot and eventually cried herself to sleep.

  
  


__________________

  
  
  


It seemed to last for hours, and it felt like Lou couldn’t stop. Until her head throbbed and she reasoned that she should be out of tears by now. 

She filled the sink with cold water and held her face in it for as long as she could. Until the very last second that she couldn’t breathe. 

Bringing her head out of the water with a gasp, her heart raced, pounding everywhere. 

“That’ll do it,” she said, out of breath, to herself. 

She had looked for the same adrenaline rush the night before with April. Something to wake her up from the unspeakable, insatiable numbness.

Her mind was busy throughout the week, hiring new staff for the club, helping with liquor inventory, often bartending, which she loved, and every time she was in the building she was thrilled to find that April seemed to act like nothing had happened. Minus the occasional smile, they interacted when they had to, just like she did with the rest of her employees.

Though she loved having Debbie as a partner on jobs - she loved it almost as much as Debbie herself - here she got to be fully in charge, and it was not bad. It would hold her over. 

The club became a dream bigger than anything she’d known. They had talked about it in university, about how Lou’s entrepreneurial skills would come in handy, and how calling it “Lou’s” would give an element of surprise to people who assumed it would be run by a man. Lou loved that too. Because it was Deb’s idea, and because it was fucking brilliant.

And bartending was not only a random distraction for Lou, it was pure entertainment. She was by herself on quiet, short-staffed nights and and paired up with whoever else was working. She also thoroughly enjoyed the flirting, and getting flirted with. April had been right, _everybody_ wanted in. To their delight, Lou was very much available. While the idea of actually going home with another woman exhausted her after the crying spell, knowing she had the choice and the control made it incredibly fun. 

The following Friday, she got to visit Debbie again. 

She waited at the same sticky plastic card table, bouncing her leg nervously and trying to do some casual eavesdropping on the conversations around her. 

There was a flash of a brunette passing the windows to the visitation room, and by the speed that she walked, Lou knew exactly who it was. 

Debbie turned the corner, half-jogging now, and practically jumped into her arms. 

_“Inmate, down.”_

“Can they get you to roll over and do tricks on command?” Lou whispered against her hair, squeezing her with everything that she had.

Debbie just squeezed her harder. “I can’t believe I’m touching you.”

But they both knew better than to continue their embrace, so she set her feet on the floor.

The brunette’s hair was clean, and she smelled it, too, but her cheekbones were sharper than usual. They sat down, their feet immediately finding each other underneath the table.

Despite her unsettling appearance and evident malnourishment, Lou was filled with a warm contentment seeing Debbie still smiling at her mischievously. 

“Hi, stranger.”

Lou raised her eyebrows in show. “Miss me?”

“More than anything.”

“You look nice. You look like shit, but what I imagine Anne Bancroft’s shit to look like.” Lou leaned her elbows on the table.

With a confirming nod, Debbie grinned. “May she rest in peace.” Her teeth had lost their pearly white shine, but they were still cleaner than Lou could’ve anticipated. She’d braided her hair, and even put a little makeup on for the occasion. “You look sexy. I like that jacket on you.”

“Thanks.” Lou blew a small pink bubble with the gum she’d forgotten was in her mouth. “I haven’t heard from you in a few weeks. Take a spontaneous vacation?” Lou asked.

“I got myself thrown in solitary. Needed some quiet time.”

“Are you okay?”

She was comforted by the kindness and concern plastered onto Lou’s face.

“I just got out this morning. I’ve never eaten cornmeal with such passion. I brushed my teeth so hard my gums were bleeding.”

“Did you get your tongue, too?”

“Squeaky clean.”

Leaning further in, Lou’s voice dropped. “How long were you in there?”

Debbie shrugged. “There’s no concept of time in there. It could’ve been two weeks, it could’ve been four days, it could’ve been a year. I got chained to the wall to take a shower the other day.”

“You dirty girl,” Lou said facetiously.

“It was only fun for the first minute or so, when the guard hooked me in. The most physical intimacy I’d had in a while. But the water was nice.”

Their feet were dancing around one another, a quiet, parallel conversation that seemed to bring them both some sort of feeling of normalcy and serotonin. 

“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” Debbie prodded. “How’s the club? How are you?”

Lou let out an incredible drawn-out sigh, which was more of a statement than actual words.

Debbie clicked her tongue. “Understood.”

“The club is great. It’s wonderful. Couldn’t be better.”

“You, on the other hand?”

“I’m very much on the same hand. I’m just the broken finger.”

Debbie’s ankles hooked around Lou’s, the only way she could invite her into an embrace. “Talk to me. Tell me everything.”

The blonde scratched a hand through her hair, brushing her fringe back for just a moment.

“I hooked up with one of my employees.”

Debbie widened her eyes and smirked humorously. “Louise Miller, what a scandal.” But she was taken by surprise when a wave of envy streaked through her, like a thin river of crusted lava at the bottom of a steep, dark cavern. Couldn’t see it, but it was definitely there. And definitely hot beneath the surface. 

“I bought her a drink before she finished her shift and then we hooked up in the broom closet.”

This was the most exciting thing Debbie had heard in what felt like ages. “How was it?”

But Lou suddenly felt the same numbness and all-surrounding un-feel-able pain from what April had said. She could sense tears coming again. Her throat tightened up horribly as she tried to hold them back. But Deb had already seen them.

“That good, huh?” She said, overwhelmed with empathy for her best friend. It choked her up, seeing Lou cry. It always had. 

Lou let them fall freely now, but did not break down. Her words were broken, catching in her throat, as painful whispers. “It was great. I’m just used to sex shutting my feelings down, not open them up.”

“I know you hadn’t been with anyone in a long time. I’m sure that must’ve been overwhelming for you.”

Deb just leaned in further and put her hand over Lou’s, not looking away from her best friend. _I’m here._

And Lou felt it. She hadn’t gone anywhere. It wasn’t forever. She felt it all just through Debbie’s eyes and hand alone. She sighed shakily.

Deb scooted closer, their ankles hooked around one another tightly.

“You know, baby, I think about you every day until it hurts. And even that doesn’t stop me.”

They both cried silently, aching at each other’s words. “That sounds awful,” Lou laughed through her tears.

Deb smiled, her eyes sparkling. “I’m surviving.”

“So imagine I’m writing a piece on survival in prison, how would you describe your experience in solitary in a sentence?”

Without missing a beat, the brunette answered, “It’s the perfect place to think.”

Deb shot her that mischievous, confident smirk that Lou knew instantly. She knew that look better than her own face. It was contagious. Deb was speaking in code, code for whatever it was that they had been doing for the last twenty-two years. The brunette’s face read, _I can’t exactly mention an elaborate criminal plan with security officers present, now can I?_

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Lou said, smiling back. 

Deb looked down at their hands, feeling a certain nostalgia for Lou’s black nail polish. 

“Being with Claude was like being at summer camp,” she began. “It was distracting and entertaining, but I felt so much like a different person, it was surreal. While I knew I was there for a reason, I was having fun, and we had chosen to do different things, I just couldn’t wait to come home.” Debbie’s voice broke on the last word. 

Lou just stared at her. Hopelessly in love with the feeling. And her heart broke all over again. “Well I certainly didn’t know that.”

_“Visitation is over. Inmates, return to your bunks.”_

They ached with the need to say more to each other.

“I love you, Bee. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

Deb nodded as she was guided away. “I love you back,” she said with a smile.


	14. The One With Reuben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 2018. The ladies have big talks with an old friend.

It got easier. They fell into a routine, seeing each other once every month. Lou’s business was thriving in the city, she bought an old, small concert venue that she was turning into her dreamhouse - a loft warehouse apartment, and she had a different woman in her bed whenever she felt like treating herself. Or someone else. It was nothing new, that Lou chose not to invite anyone for a second night or take anyone on a ‘date’. She’d never had any interest in dating. Excluding Claude, Debbie hadn’t formally been with anyone since university. Their partnership had been the ideal commitment.

Lou’s hookups happened half as often as her visits with Deb. Those were _everything._ The hookups, only something.

They celebrated their birthdays, in September 2017 and again the first day of the new year, over the phone. It became normal, and their conversations became less deep, instead becoming more light-hearted, younger, and happier.

Three years later, when Danny died, Lou, of course, saw it in the newspaper, on the off-chance that she read it. Deb’s father, wherever he was, had likely sent in an obituary, grieving the loss of his _favourite child_. Tammy had visited Debbie once or twice, given she had small children and the Oppressed Suburban Wives’ Book Club to attend to, but many of the Ocean family affiliates fell off the grid the moment Deb was arrested - her father in particular. Lou was uncomfortable with the fact that she would have to deliver the news to Deb, and decided to speak with a trusted friend about whether or not that was the best idea. 

“If it comes from you, she’ll know it’s true. She hasn’t seen me in years,” Reuben said, sipping his espresso across from Lou in a small coffee shop on the corner.

“I know it’s selfish, but I don’t want it to affect our relationship.”

“It’s not quite _selfish_ , but it’s a little absurd. You’ve known each other for longer than I’ve ever been married. She will appreciate finding out from you.”

“It’s just a kind of unsettling I’m not normally comfortable with. And I’m very comfortable with ‘unsettling’. I grew up watering down my dad’s booze so he didn’t beat my brothers.”

“And yet if he found out, he might have beat you.”

“I had a baseball arm, I could hold my own. He’s also a heavy sleeper.”

Reuben smiled. “It feels weird because you know her brother has been declared dead. That would make anyone feel weird. But your relationship will suffer far worse if you don’t tell her.”

Lou knew he was right. _Goddamnit,_ he was right. As usual. 

Reuben visited Deb once or twice when she was first incarcerated, and hadn’t since. And Danny never could, seeing as he, himself, was a renowned criminal in its truest form, but he’d written her letters under a fake name from their childhood. But eventually, dead people stop writing.

“How is she?” Reuben asked. “Her time’s almost up, isn’t it?”

“She’s good. Quiet. But that’s Deb. She’s got eight months left, minus good behaviour.”

With his napkin, Reuben cleaned up the condensation underneath his saucer. “I’ve never seen her love anyone as much as she loves you.”

Lou smiled softly, remembering what it was like when Debbie was physically tangible to her. 

“That’s sweet of you,” Lou added. 

“I speak the truth, sunshine.”

“Promise me you’ll visit her? It’ll be good for her to know I’m not the only person who cares.”

Reuben nodded and left a tip before they stood up from the table. “I promise.”

“But make it look like you came on your own terms, not like I asked you.”

Reuben rolled his eyes. “Louise, I’m a con man. I invented the art of pretending.”

  
  
  


————

  
  


Lou couldn’t wait for the next visitation. 

She contacted the prison to see if there was any way Deb could at least get the message to call her. 

An hour later, her phone rang again.

“Hi, baby, what’s going on?” Debbie sounded pleasant. 

At least she didn’t seem as though her day was already terrible, but Lou was about to make it worse. She’d known Debbie longer than anyone, but right now, her reaction was entirely unpredictable. 

“Debbie, I have some news.”

“What, am I getting out early?”

“Not quite as celebratory.”

Her friend’s spirits dropped, and she could feel them land on the prison floor through the phone. 

“Okay, I’m ready.”

Lou took a breath to steady herself. “Danny’s been declared dead.”

It took a beat. 

“Bee?”

“I don’t believe it.”

“If I hadn’t picked up a _newspaper_ for the first time in my life, I might not have found out.”

“If that little shit has set this up….”

“It’s not unlikely.”

Another elongated silence.

“You there?”

“Thanks, Lou. I’m glad I’m hearing it from you.”

“Well, he obviously wasn’t planning to tell you.”

Debbie laughed, which sounded closer to an almost-sob, missing her all the more. 

Lou had been putting up pictures on the industrial fridge of her new loft, finding one of Debbie and Danny. “Do me a favour and be a good girl until you get out, alright?”

“I promise.”

  
  


_________________

  
  
  


“You’ve created some nice metaphorical bookends for my sentence, Reub.” Debbie kissed his cheek as they embraced at the beginning of visitation hours. 

“Lou told me how much time you had left. I thought I’d check in one more time, for old time’s sake.”

“Hm. Have you seen her new place yet?” 

Reuben shook his head. “The club is keeping her busy all hours. Bartending, hiring and firing, being the best boss, the usual.”

“Sounds like the ideal retirement.”

“It’s better than what I’ve been doing, that’s for sure. I never thought I’d want to be forty-three again.”

“Do you believe in soulmates, Reub?”

He took a moment before nodding. “I had one once.”

“I remember her. She was a wonderful mother to us.”

“She loved you like her own.”

“I’m sorry,” Deb said softly, recalling his wife’s funeral ten years earlier. She and Lou had both attended, and mourned the loss of the mother they’d both been missing. Even though they only saw her once or twice a year, on national holidays. 

“Thank you. I think I know why you’re asking.”

Debbie gave a good-natured scoff. “Try me.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘soulmates’ but the definition is still the same. I believe that everything happens for a reason. And I do believe that two people can be destined to find each other. And be together. As friends, as lovers, as criminal partners, as any or all of the above. And I believe that you and Lou are one of the best examples of that.”

Debbie felt her throat clench up. “How do you know?” She believed him, she knew it was true, but she was suddenly achingly curious as to _how._

Reuben looked out the window and sighed. “Well, from what I’ve seen of you two in the last twenty years, from Ocean family dinners to New Year’s and birthday parties, you share a brain. You’re two halves of the same soul. You are fantastic, brilliant individuals, but when you’re put together, it’s like… _yes. This fits._ That’s it. That is companionship, partnership, friendship…that is love.”

Deb took a moment, the words sinking into every bone. “You should make Hallmark cards, Reub.”

He pressed on. “You hear me?”

“I hear you. And you’re always right.”

“Well, that could be debatable, but I know I am right about this.”

_“Visitation is over. Inmates, return to your bunks.”_

And that was it.


	15. The One Where Debbie Gets Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April 2018. Debbie gets out. The rest is history. Except for everything in between the lines....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally into modern narrative, babyeee!

Lou had given in and “treated herself” to a beat-up, second-hand motorbike that a series of YouTube videos had convinced her she could fix on her own. Truthfully, she could. Did she want to? That was another story.

It wasn’t so much a matter of saving up the funds for a new machine, because those certainly existed, it was more a question of,  _ where would I go? What would I do once I got there?  _

She fantasized about driving solo along the California coastline on a sleek black and burgundy Triumph motorcycle. The magazines didn’t do it justice. Work was more important right now. 

“It’s a rerun, April.” Lou filled a shot glass in the staff room lit like a scene directly out of  _ Basic Instinct _ , but with a warmer, gayer hue. “She slept with her cousin. Crashed the car. The baby’s not his. What’s that taste like?”

April downed the shot and winced. “Gah. Vodka.”

Lou nodded. “Vodka. But I don’t want vodka. I want vodka  _ and _ water, and do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because when you’re drunk, it tastes like vodka.”

After nearly four years at the job, something in April seemed to click. “Right.”

Lou winked. “Right.”

Sofi Tukker’s “Best Friend” pounded through the wooden floors and the glass wall that overlooked the club below. 

It had been four weeks since she’d last visited Deb, but four weeks was nothing compared to how long they’d already been apart. This was their new normal, and it barely felt like anything was out of the ordinary. Lou had her business, and Debbie’s brain was churning out a big idea of which Lou had yet to be informed. 

But she had been asked to get a credit line for said big idea. 

And Lou hadn’t done it yet. When she saw Deb in the flesh, she could perhaps be convinced to maybe do her a favour or two. Only if she asked nicely.

Lou had a gut feeling that was impossible to ignore: while they’d become very different people in the last five years, she and Deb both seemed to be either on the verge of a midlife crisis, or the most legendary adventure of their lives. 

The lanky blonde watched over her self-made kingdom, like a lioness proudly protecting her territory before descending the curving metal staircase and wading through the sweat-covered bodies who writhed and swayed with each other in a hyper-energized and tightly packed environment. She could taste the heightening of the sexuality in the room; it was her drug. She got off on the smell of sex, alcohol, and money in a pompous little fruit cocktail. Next to the usual scent that Deborah used to wear. 

In the far corner of the warehouse club, she took a breath of the night air by the Hudson River. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and her heart jumped into her throat. 

_ Where’s the fckng cemetery? 12pm? _

Either Deb had managed to replace an old phone, or the one the marshals had sealed in a Ziploc in an iron safe for five and a half years with her pretty little sequin dress and stilettos simply needed a boost. But her name still appeared in Lou’s exactly as she’d labeled it once her correctional fate was decided.

“Missed you, too,” Lou said in wonder as she read the long-awaited message from JLBRD, looking out across the water knowing that somewhere in the night, Debbie Ocean was fraudulently checking in to a hotel and relishing in a eucalyptus bubble bath. 

She spent no more time badgering her employees about vodka and water and instead left to make her new home at least a little presentable for her long-lost best friend. But mostly just to make sure there was food in the fridge and anything she’d borrowed didn’t now smell like her, instead. 

It was Lou’s house, after all. Everything smelled like Lou.

But until the ex-convict got on her feet, things would start smelling like Debbie again, and Lou couldn’t wait. 

  
  


______________

  
  
  


Fully immersed in the clawfoot tub by the window, the sensation brought tears to Debbie’s eyes. Candles had been lit and the room was quiet enough to be a meditation retreat, save for the distant bustle of New York several stories below. 

The thrill she got from knowing she would be able to hug her best friend tomorrow, and not get shouted at for holding her too long. 

To wear her own clothes again. To sleep in a bed big enough for two. To eat whenever she felt like it, and to cook her own meals. To cook for Lou. To spend the entire day outside. To listen to loud music. To find out if her brother was truly dead, to make new friends, reunite with old, and to run the biggest heist of her life. 

She had it all planned out with a cherry on top, and written on a piece of hotel stationary that was now damp from bubbles and the sweat from her fingertips. 

That night gave her the most dreamless sleep she’d ever had. It would only get better from here. 

____________

  
  


“Sometimes just knowing the job is gonna work is satisfaction, enough. You don’t actually gotta do it.”

Reuben knew she heard him. Just as much as he knew his advice was worthless to the likes of Debbie Ocean. Even if the words of wisdom had been passed on from her allegedly deceased brother. Danny’s ghost would’ve slept with everybody’s wife and stolen money from everyone on the property if he was truly dead. The cemetery seemed far too quiet for him to be resting in peace. 

An achingly familiar car horn sounded behind them. Deb turned to confirm, and tried her best to keep a lid on her elation.

“You’re looking sharp,” she said to Reuben as she gently played with the flanks of his coat, a loving glint in her eye.

She popped open her lost-and-found umbrella and dragged her newfound suitcase out into the dampening grey afternoon. 

Lou’s Toyota waited on the bend before the pathway to the atrium, engine running almost in sync with the evident purr of Lou’s greeting. 

The moment Deb had closed the passenger door, Lou pulled her in for a tight embrace, kissing her hair affectionately. 

“Easy,” Deb said half-jokingly. “Been in the slammer.”

Lou’s retort was cocky and so perfectly  _ her. _ “Oh, I just thought you’d changed your number.” She checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. 

The ride to the loft felt as strangely comfortable as their most recent visits. 

Like no time had passed at all.

Debbie rolled her eyes when Lou matter-of-factly explained why she hadn’t gotten the credit line.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Deb conned, apparently forgetting to whom she was speaking.

Lou rolled her eyes right back. Deb missed those eyes.

“That would be my ‘I’ve just been in jail for five years and my partner lets me down’ face.”

“Hey,” Lou warned with a sort of earnestness that Deb couldn’t have predicted with a crystal ball. “I’m not your partner.” They pulled into what looked like a well-protected warehouse yard overlooking another corner of the Hudson. “Yet.”

Debbie instinctively tried not to think about all the things that statement could possibly mean, deflecting with her usual sarcastic comment about the barbed wire fence and a small shoplifted treasure that would open up the rest of the conversation, and would involve a great deal of persuasion. They had always been partners, she just wasn’t completely signed on for  _ this _ .

But at the mention of jewels, Lou was certainly very much not interested in brain surgery, and very much ready to be persuaded. 

_______________

  
  


Lou’s loft was practically a castle, the second floor completely open and just as inviting as the first. 

It was surprisingly warm, for a building that could have easily been the sister house to Radio City Music Hall in its prime. The staircase was wiry and thin, like a fire escape, the kitchen expansive with a bar feature, and Lou’s fixer-upper downtime project was sitting in the corner, resonating with Debbie as a broken-down machine that hadn’t been out in a while, both secretly longing for Lou’s love. 

“Nice place.”

“There’s a room for you upstairs.”

Debbie took in the poker table as Lou dodged around, fiddling with pieces of her home that could sit doing nothing elsewhere. 

“Your stuff’s upstairs, too.” Lou’s leopard print fur was now draped over one of the well-worn living room chairs as her heels thumped into the kitchen at the mercy of her long legs. “I borrowed some shit. Figured you weren’t using it,” Lou added over her shoulder with a playful grin.

Debbie hadn’t even taken her coat off, yet. 

Just smelling Lou’s space again - the ‘designer’ beer, the dregs of the same fragrance she’d used since college that miraculously never ran out, the expensive spices she used when cooking, the rare strain of weed that had put Debbie off of smoking permanently years ago, but she tolerated because it was Lou, and Lou’s smell was better than any type of drug.

This would take Debbie a lot longer to process than she thought.

So she did what they both did best under emotional shifts: focus her energy somewhere else. 

Lou gave her the tour, about to head to the club, which allowed Deb to get settled before she left. 

“There’s food in the fridge, always, and booze, but please don’t ingest it all at once. You don’t get a free pass, here. Door locks automatically. Here’s the spare key in case you leave.”

Debbie clipped it into her bra. Their eyes held each other for seconds longer than perhaps appropriate before Lou turned to leave. “I’ll be home around midnight. Don’t go back to prison while I’m gone.”

“I’ll leave a note, if I do.”

“Look at you, with the big ideas.” Lou  _ hated  _ notes. Especially the Post-It kind. “Welcome back, floozy.”

“Love you too, trollop.”

Lou had grabbed her keys and was about to reach for the door before she paused.

“Do you want to come with me?”

Debbie’s face brightened. “More than anything.”

Lou gestured with an index finger and a narrowed gaze, and Debbie rushed down the staircase as safely as she could. Having no socks on was a plus, for she was celebrating the avoidance of fungus for five years.

The blonde admired her adorably strange and bony feet. How she imagined them brushing against hers in the middle of the night as they fell asleep together.

She’d fallen asleep with quite a few feet. But Debbie Ocean knew to keep her toenails short, and her skin moisturized.


	16. The One With Orange is the New Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Debbie finally experiences Lou's club. And discovers more feelings. Lou celebrates Easter. In this house we respect Laura Prepon and Fiona Apple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aligning with the script, all the little moments we missed, and all the BIGGER moments we never even had, but deserve. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!!

They looked good together, and twenty-two years had convinced them of exactly that. 

Lou’s leopard print and sharp atomic blonde semblance, Debbie’s favourite olive green coat that she’d missed so terribly all those years, and her thick beach wave that spoke more for itself than any other hairdo she’d ever had.

They looked like partners.

Lou revved the engine of the Toyota, which caused a sputtering death sound from the back of the vehicle. They shared a startled look before bursting into snorts and giggles. 

When they arrived at the club, Lou led them to the back door, where she took out her heavy and very-much-not-glamourous set of keys.

“Willy Wonka called, he wants his keys back.”

“I would say prison made you rude, but you’ve always been a bit of a prick.”

Debbie playfully palmed Lou’s ass before they passed through the large metal door. The vibration of the pounding bass only increased and filled Debbie’s ears with a feeling she had long forgotten. 

Lou liked having her ass touched. By Debbie. She liked Debbie’s ass, too. _Focus, idiot._

She only planned to check in on inventory and make her rounds. “Welcome to paradise.”

Every sense in Debbie’s body was heightened as she absorbed the music, the moving bodies crammed into a space that would be expansive if empty.

Lou’s business was thriving. It was packed. Everything seemed to run as smoothly as the gears in the blonde’s brain. Debbie had never been so magnetized to an environment.

She was shown around the ground floor and upstairs, where Lou introduced her to the staff.

“Everybody, this is Debbie. She’s a felon, so play your cards wrong and you could end up just like her.”

“She looks great for a felon,” one of the employees said.

Lou leaned on the wooden bar where the watered-down vodka happened, awaiting the response. 

They shared a delightfully percipient look before Deb stated casually, “Genetics.”

“Hang on, is this….?” April walked around the bar, coming face-to-face with the much taller brunette, turning to Lou for confirmation in between the craning of her neck to meet Deb’s eyes. 

Deb looked her up and down before glancing back at Lou. She pointed a lazy finger. “Is this….?”

Lou nodded affirmatively to both of them, shifting and setting her jaw in amusement. “It is.”

The two women shared another look, sizing each other up wordlessly. “Welcome back, felon,” April said with a smile and an extended hand. When Debbie took it, the younger of the two leaned in with a whisper. “You’re all she talks about.”

“Well, she’s the hottest lesbian attraction in prison, and she wasn’t even there. The feeling’s mutual.”

April turned to Lou. “I like her.”

Lou vaulted herself up from her leaning position, gently guiding Deb towards the door with a hand at her lower back. “Get your own,” she said affectionately.

Debbie liked being touched again. _Just a few inches lower…._

Lou was perhaps a little more modest than she. 

What was better than being touched, she found, was _barely_ being touched. Especially since it was her best friend’s hand poised behind her. The electricity could’ve been coming from anywhere. It was a queer nightclub. 

Outside the staff lounge was a crisply lit hallway. Lou gestured cordially. “That’s the closet I fucked her in. This is the staff bathroom. Want a drink?”

“From the toilet?”

“You really do need a drink.”

Debbie examined one of the newer gold pendants that hung low on Lou’s sternum. “We already knew that. You’re just the world’s worst tour guide.”

Lou smiled and took her hand. “But we already knew that, too. Come on.”

Once Debbie was seated at a barstool, the area illuminated with tubes of natural light and several powerhouse sexual magnets with tattoos, chains, softly defined muscles, and an inherent streak of _I could ruin your life with a well-placed flick of my tongue_ without a hint of arrogance. That kind of streak stayed well beneath the surface until otherwise provoked. But twenty-two years of Lou and five years of prison had seasoned Debbie to recognize that particular personality. 

These were Lou’s people.

Three large TV screens played on mute, nestled amongst the wall of liquor bottles behind the bar, playing what appeared to be _Orange is the New Black_ (a show she’d seen advertised on billboards in the last twenty-four hours that some shallow Googling told her had first released when she landed in prison, how ironic), _D.E.B.S_ (if Lou had any say in it, naturally), and _Rent,_ which needed no explanation.

“Give her whatever she wants,” Lou told the bartender. “Just got out of prison.” 

One of the shorter individuals with a thick blue mullet raised their eyebrows and applauded. “No way. You watch _Orange_?”

Debbie couldn’t be bothered. “I just got out of prison.”

Lou let out a discreet snort and the bartender reddened. “Oh, man, my bad. You get to watch anything while you’re in there?”

“My bunkie liked to eat her own hair in chunks.”

“Sounds like fun. What’ll it be?”

“Rum and coke, please.”

As she took a sip of her first hard liquor of freedom, Lou rounded the bar and got close to her ear. “I have to go fire somebody. You okay here for a few minutes?”

“What did they do, use three fingers instead of one?” Debbie very quickly finished off her drink, already buzzed. 

Lou liked the reference to her well vodka system. But couldn’t resist. “Three fingers deserves a raise.”

“I’ll be fine here.” Debbie smiled. 

Lou kissed her hair. “Order another drink if you want. But I want you conscious and stable when I get back.”

“Can’t make any promises.”

On the right screen, Jordana Brewster and Sara Foster looked exceptional together. Two heads of familiar hair.

On the left, a high-maintenance yet incredibly sick-looking blonde wandered aimlessly into a hallway of her fellow inmates, and Debbie watched as her focus suddenly hardened and her feet had a certain destination. She marched down the hallway, getting more confident with every step, until the shot changed and she entered a block of bunks, ignoring a cheerful redhead with a lion’s mane as the subtitles read, _“Holy shit, Chapman. You’re out.”_

_I wonder if Chapman had the choice of moldy meatloaf or pungent tuna casserole._

The scrawny blonde had a dead-set look in her eyes as she entered the bunk of an absurdly hot and tall woman with jet black hair, who looked like - _oh my God, is that Laura Prepon?!_

_That’s definitely Laura Prepon._

Laura Prepon seemed surprised to see her. ‘Chapman’ took her hand and said _“Let’s get out of here.”_

_“Are you okay?”_

They duck into a room with much better lighting, and as they face one another, Debbie can already taste what’s about to happen. Like animals who already seem to know each other inside and out, they embrace in a tandem lip lock that turns red hot, _fast._ The camera does a one-eighty around them as Grumpy takes off Laura Prepon’s shirt, and the reverse happens. 

Right before the screen cuts to _orange_ , Debbie catches what appears to be a stained glass window. 

_Oh my God, they’re hooking up in a chapel. That’s it?!_

Hot _and_ bothered, she asked the bartender, “Did that TV just glitch out?”

They smirked. “No, that’s how every episode ends. You know, instead of the whole “cut to black” or “fade to black” in movies? _Orange is the new black_? Get it?”

“Do we actually get to see them hookup at any point?”

“Oh yeah. Tons of times. Season six comes out this summer, though. So hopefully more.”

“What’s that scene sound like? Is there music?” Debbie tried to paint the picture in her head to hold her over until they got home and she could explore Netflix with fresh eyes.

“Walking Backwards. Leagues. Great song.”

But she quickly forgot the name. Skipworth and Turner picked the worst time to blast through the speakers, years after Debbie and Lou’s clubbing days had ended.

“No way,” the brunette said to herself, tasting the bitter remnants of rum on the inside of her cheeks, coated with the invisibly saccharine memory of the soda. She quickly pulled her modest wad of leftover cash out of her pocket and offered a five dollar bill to the bartender, who slipped it back to her. “You’re with Lou. You’re covered.”

Something in Debbie’s stomach twitched at even the suggestion of being _with Lou._ Especially after watching something like _that_ on television.

But also something she was starting to understand less and less, as it seemed to change form. She’d been with Lou for over two decades. 

Debbie Ocean had always favoured simple and straightforward fonts. But now she seemed to be leaning towards italics. 

The young bartender had a glittery choker around their neck emblazoned with the word DYKE in all caps. 

Debbie gave them a friendly smirk and passed the bill back across the bar. “That’s all for you, babe.”

The bartender replied with a wink and a deeply suggestive once-over, but Deb couldn’t quite see past the implication that this person couldn’t be over the age of twenty-one. 

But she’d been behind bars for five years of her life. Anybody could be anything these days.

And she needed to feel _everything._

Keeping her coat on (because prison had taught her more than a few things) she slowly merged with the crowd of dancers, the smell of sweet, spilled liquor and perspiration, the pounding bass like the world’s most glamourous, exhilarating headache, and closed her eyes.

The knowledge that she was truly, finally free would catch up with her. For now, she just let herself feel.

The vibration of the bass in through her toes and up her spine.

The jostling of slick bodies around her embracing one another and living through their most ultimate, divine truths. 

A familiar, gentle hand on her forearm. 

Her eyes opened and she turned around, smiling through blurry eyes at her best friend in the light of the projector screen.

Lou just smiled at her, affirming that they were both here, together, in the same room, the same life, the same existence again. “Let me know when you’re done having a moment and I’ll take you home.”

________________

  
  


They both crashed hard when they arrived back at the loft, preparing for the morning when they would definitely be pinching themselves to make sure it was real. 

Lou spent most of the next day working on (complaining) about her bike, and Debbie began to lay out plans for the job, which she had yet to fully explain to Lou. 

But Lou knew to be patient. She knew it was a big one, and her skin itched to stamp her involvement all over it. 

That night, Debbie picked out one of her older dresses and a billowy white dress coat, telling Lou she was going out.

The Claude Becker Gallery was something else, and not in a good way. 

The interior _reeked_ of toxic ‘tender’ masculinity and aesthetic sensitivity in a way that she simply could not buy if she wanted to. 

She had nothing against people exploring their artistic expression, but when she knew, perhaps better than anyone, the malice and dishonour that lurked beneath his stupid cashmere sweater, it proved difficult to appreciate the public display of his apparent vulnerability. 

_____________

Debbie took the subway home, enjoying the mundanity of city life again.

Letting herself into the loft, the sultry tones of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” floated over her like a wave of the sex she hadn’t had in a while. 

She may have fucked a few fellow inmates to get something in return - it was always a mutual exchange, and always less than enjoyable - but it had been _far_ too long since she’d actually felt present and seen in the bedroom and everything that came with it. Orgasms were almost as rare. 

Lou was in the kitchen in a faded plaid robe that hung open to reveal her soft, modest breasts, an Easter Bunny mask poised on the top of her head, and was busily arranging takeout containers.

Debbie had forgotten what day it was. And what takeout smelled like. The door slammed behind her, echoing through the entire house.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” the blonde called to her over the music. “You hungry?”

Music and eating past five o’clock would take some getting used to. “Always.”

“I got Chinese. Happy Easter.”

Kicking her heels off but keeping her coat on, she headed to join Lou in the kitchen promptly, giving her a kiss on the cheek and helping carry the food to the table. 

“What made you smile today?”

Lou sat across from her, breaking apart her chopsticks. “Real answer or less real answer?”

Debbie was already poised to stuff her face. “Yes.”

Lou was reminded of the pad thai hotel room champagne heartburn threesome eighteen years ago. “Feeding you.”

Mouth full, Debbie’s brow furrowed. “I mean before that.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” She took her first bite, and with it embraced the hypocrisy. “Where’d you go?”

The brunette hummed. “I went to pay a little visit to an old friend.”

“How are the kids?”

“Think straighter. Criminal.”

Their straight friends were limited. ‘Criminal’ didn’t exactly narrow down the options, either. But the anticipatory revenge in Debbie’s eyes was a dead giveaway.

“You didn’t.”

“I had to make an appearance.” Debbie shrugged. 

“He saw you?”

The brunette whispered, her expression carved as though she was recalling one of their legendary heists. “Oh, yeah.”

Lou’s tone was buttered over with fascination and a verbal eye roll, with a good-natured sugar-coating of _classic._ “Why would you do something like that?” 

The next bite of noodles waited at the entrance of Debbie’s mouth. She squinted over at Lou. “Closure?”

Lou dropped her utensils with a scoff. “Bullshit.”

Debbie just smirked and passed her carefully crafted toothbrush shiv across the table. Lou removed the Easter Bunny mask. “Jesus.”

The brunette hummed an approving laugh. 

Lou raised the weapon like a _Psycho_ gimmick. “So did you….”

Deb shook her head. “No. Just a little button.” The small piece of Claude Becker’s overpriced dress shirt slid across the table next. Lou laughed, their eyes meeting with a shared mischief, the kind that never got old.


	17. The One With Veselka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our girls have their infamous lunch date at Veselka. The morning of, the brisk April morning walk, and every ounce of subtext that oozes through the silver screen.

The silver satin sheets were torn away from Debbie's warm body the next morning, her sleepy eyes blinking open.

“Alright, Ocean, I’m all ears.”

Lou had been up for an hour, trying to formulate every possible job Deb could’ve come up with in five years, but finally gave up, seeking the full explanation from the mastermind, herself.

Debbie groaned into her pillow, her stomach tightening unexpectedly when she felt Lou crawl onto the mattress, hovering over her with the kind of heat that only Lou could have, even fully dressed. The blonde playfully bit her shoulder, chains tickling her arm. “Come on, Jailbird, I didn’t wait five-and-a-half years for you to be a pillow princess. Get up.”

She squealed when Lou’s firm hand landed with a _clap_ on her bare ass, peeking out from underneath her well-loved sleepshirt and boyshorts. The mattress dipped and bounced back before the blonde disappeared around the corner and headed downstairs.

If only the ‘rooms’ in Lou’s loft had fucking doors. 

Her sleepshirt smelled like Lou, just like everything else she owned, and she hadn’t felt this feeling between her legs in _years_. 

__________________

  
  


“So first I thought banks, because, you know….”

“That’s where they have money?”

“Exactly. But that’s kind of boring. So then I thought, ten banks. Then I realized that would maybe be coming from an angry place, so….”

“Good you realized that.”

“Then I couldn’t even hear myself think, you know, five women in one cell, so I got myself thrown in solitary for a little peace and quiet, and that’s where I finally came up with it.”

Lou wondered for only a moment why Deb had stopped walking. 

_Of fucking course Debbie Ocean would plot to rob the fucking MET._

Debbie sensed the speechless on Lou’s tongue.

“Lunch?”

Lou just gaped at her, eyes speaking a thousand words even beneath their designer sunglasses. 

  
  


__________________

  
  


Veselka had always been a favourite spot of theirs.

Deb had never felt quite so intimate sharing a very small table with her best friend. And Lou had donned a dark green velvet three-piece suit that clung to her in all the right places. _That’s new._

“It’s still a museum.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , it’s not like robbing a liquor store.”

A small part of Debbie’s body melted at the particular stress of Lou’s gentle Australian lilt.

Debbie liked to defend herself, but the bite she’d taken of her perogies had other plans. Again, here was Lou to draw attention to Deb’s lack of manners.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Ukrainian.”

But the look in those blue eyes tore right through her, knowing exactly what she was trying to say and trying _just_ as hard to hide her amusement. Lou shifted her jaw to mark the end of her sentence as Debbie swallowed. 

“I said, “We’re not robbing a museum, we’re robbing someone _in the museum._ ”

“Yeah, you mentioned.”

Leave it to Deb to realize how hungry she is only when food is placed in front of her.

Lou had stopped eating temporarily, transfixed upon Deb’s quiet explanation of the heist and her obsessive face-stuffing that had been surprisingly missed in her absence. She even let Debbie indulge in the leftovers from her own plate.

“Even if this was possible,” Lou countered as she leaned her elbows on the table.

“ _Is_ possible.”

Lou ignored her. “Even if it was, I mean, we’d need twenty people and half a million dollars.”

“Seven.”

“Seven million?”

Debbie’s eyes sparkled. Nourishment and intellectual stimulation. “Seven people and twenty grand.”

Lou explored the brunette’s face for an ulterior motive, finding only cheekbones and professional methods of seduction. “Why do you need to do this?”

It was a strange feeling that sparked in Debbie as Lou watched her, mouth muscles warming themselves up - or cooling themselves down in the apparent lunch intermission. 

Lou’s stomach dropped, torn between the penetrative truth in Debbie’s eyes and the forkful of food that just got claimed by the brunette’s tongue, teeth, and lips. 

“Yeah….” Lou squinted, eyes flickering through her fringe, beneath Deb’s words.

Deb had to talk more to distract herself from the fullness and softness of Lou’s lips as they moved tantalizingly. Again, she wasn’t supposed to be even thinking about such things. 

Neither was Lou. 

But there they were.

They both responded well to reason, so Deb cut the nonsense and tried to stay black and white. Her lunch was no longer important. 

“You know what, I have run this thing a thousand times. Every time I got caught, I fixed it.”

But their eye contact had begun to insist upon being in living, breathing, vivid colour. 

“And in three years I wasn’t getting caught anymore. By the time I was paroled it was running like clockwork.” She found herself admiring the subtleties of Lou’s face that she’d always loved, her head tilted in a way that seemed to provide her the best view. “Perfectly.”

The blonde wondered how long she’d been looking at her lips. How long ago she’d stopped listening, already knowing everything that came out of Debbie’s mouth and thinking about making her shut up in more ways than one. The brunette said more, enough to _truly_ get her attention.

“And you were there with me, every step of the way.”

Lou worked well with sarcasm. Not emotions. “Oh, honey, is this a proposal?”

Deb’s thighs clenched at how Lou’s voice resonated differently, accent and all, on that particular word.

Two could play this game. “Baby, I don’t have a diamond, yet.” This look said more, _far_ more than any conversation they’d had. Perhaps more than either of them intended. She tried to divert even further from the very unfamiliar, very strange path of blossoming feelings.

“Come on, do you really want to spend the rest of your life watering down well vodka? Because it’s...really kind of a waste.” Debbie held out a forkful of her own lunch just inches away from Lou’s mouth as the blonde had looked out the window to neutralize her blush, accompanied by a knowing scoff. 

This was entirely unexpected _._ How desperately Debbie wanted to watch her use her jaw again as she looked at her with those _eyes._

“Come on. Take a bite.”

_God, I will,_ Lou thought. 

Had all these years simply accumulated the deepest trust and understanding so that gradually, after Debbie went to prison and they both hit their forties, they would begin to have actual _feelings_ for each other? Like, _I’ve never actually imagined myself spending the rest of my life with anyone, but **you**_?

This was all just pre-heist adrenaline. They hadn’t seen each other. Touch starved. 

They’d both fucked other people.

They were more than satisfied. 

Except for that one little thing that had been missing.

Each other. 

Debbie repeated softly, “Just take a bite.” Perhaps it was Lou removing her gum that made her voice go entirely weak.

Lou didn’t give up so easily. “You’re really irritating.”

“ _Open._ ” As though they were already in their old age feeding each other in a nursing home.

Debbie had never been so attracted to the way someone put their mouth around a dinky metal restaurant fork.

The way she arched her wrist put Lou in a position that felt like Debbie had never fed her so carefully.

With such focus and intention.

They were good at eye contact and at unspoken statements.

But something had definitely changed. Lou played it off with a nod, accepting the taste of the food that made a much harder pill to swallow go down easier. “That’s good.”

Debbie simply acknowledged it with the only words that came to mind. “Very good.”

And the rest of the conversation stayed buried as deep as Danny Ocean’s body. 

  
  


_Oh, my God, I’m in love with my best friend._

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao get it cuz Danny Ocean is probably actually very not dead at all but they very much think he is so it's all very symbolic


	18. The One With the Bubble Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The introduction of Daphne and Rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm having a lot of fun going through the movie and writing in all the delicious subtext of which we have been ROBBED!
> 
> Hopefully this isn't too boring, since we've all seen most of these interactions already, but I'm trying to add enough in between that it keeps it interesting. 
> 
> More original stuff so soon!!! Getting warmer!! Thank you for reading :)

“Do you know who you’re wearing?”

Daphne Kluger checked the lining of her exquisitely shaped red dress as she addressed the press conference crowd. “La Perla. It’s black.”

The journalist laughed stiffly. “No, I mean who’s dressing you?”

“You know, I don’t really know yet….”

Debbie and Lou shared an inconspicuous look, both of brimming mischief and apparent disbelief that such a woman as Daphne existed, and that she was hosting the Met Gala afterparty. 

The journalist bit back sharply, practically murder in her eyes. “The designer.”

The blonde and the brunette watching from the corner kept their eyes on Daphne for the response. She could’ve almost matched the other woman’s need for the upper hand. “ _I don’t know yet._ But, as soon as I do, you’ll be the _very_ first person that I tell. Next question?” Her tone maintained a sort of sickening sweetness that Lou and Debbie typically _despised_ in other women, but for this particular job, she would be an absolutely perfect fit. 

Lou whispered to Debbie, who leaned in with a hot pressing interest. “She’d be a lot less infuriating if she quit topping from the bottom.” Debbie let out a discreet snort, cheeks burning on low from Lou’s breath on her ear.

______________

  
  


“Rose Weil. Why do I know that name?”

“She was big. In the nineties.”

“Oh God, all the Eduardian collars and the ruffles….”

Lou mimicked Debbie’s throat clenching with her hand to affirm the point. “Travesty. But Anna still likes her. They do Easter together every year in Kent.”

Her eyes fell upon the way Debbie’s fingers rested at her collarbone.

“Brits?” Debbie asked.

“Irish. _And_ she owes the IRS five million dollars.”

No more needed to be said, as usual.

  
  


_______________

  
  


Lou looked _really_ good in light blue. And her treble clef pin, and her multiple chains, and the slightly arranged blush high on her cheekbones. 

She looked good in everything. And the brunette was perhaps far too aware of that.

Debbie had straightened her hair and her pencil skirt hugged the shape of her glorious ass in a way that was impossible for Lou to ignore, even as her best friend. 

The fashion show was, indeed, a train wreck. Declared by Debbie as, “A flight to nowhere without any peanuts.”

Behind the scenes, they found Rose Weil lurking in a corner, on the floor, self-medicating with Nutella and the salt from the tears smearing themselves down her oddly defined features. Curls, red lipstick, glasses. A hero of the fashion industry that had once reigned supreme in the era that Debbie and Lou first began rigging bingo. Everything changes at some point.

“‘Rose Weil,’” the smaller woman read to them from a blog after they’d buttered her up with their proclamation as ‘big fans, very big’. 

“‘Her new collection is like taking a tour of your grandmother’s closet.” The Irish lilt accentuated some of the best words. “‘Just as dated, and just as musty. The Eskimo shove their elders out on an ice floe. Just saying.’”

Lou and Debbie shared a sorrowful, cautious look. Then Lou’s rarely seen empath kicked in. “That’s very cruel. But it doesn’t make it true.”

Deb tilted her head, pouting her lips in a way that made Lou’s answer questionable, but perhaps she was right. 

“How did I get here?”

Now it was Debbie’s turn, and she was good at playing devil’s advocate. “You spent eighteen million dollars in two years and had two houseboats on the Seine.”

Rose’s head dropped dramatically. “I’m old.”

Instinctively, and perhaps awkwardly as she turned to Deb for help. “Hey, you’re not old.”

The smaller woman sobbed. “I’m _old_ , and I’m going to prison. And then I’m going to be _really really poor._ ” It was intriguing how much smaller she seemed to be able to get. 

Deb joined the floor-talk. “Not necessarily.”

“What if we could make all this go away?” Lou gestured, arm still on Rose’s shoulders. “Even get your passport back?”

The fashion designer’s suspicions were finally kicking in. “How?”

“Dress Daphne Kluger for the Met Ball?”

“Are you mad?”

Lou pulled away, Debbie shaking her head sweetly. 

“Now, hang on a minute.” Rose leaned back to get a better look and the two well-dressed Amazons. “Are you journalists?”

The con artists played up their offence. “Absolutely not.”

“God, no.”

Lou looked at Deb as though she’d smelled something foul.

______________

  
  


The following day, Rose agreed to meet with them at the loft. The small, anxious woman seemed to conquer her fear of getting abducted in the criminal headquarters that lay nestled inside of the ominous brick building by the water. 

She certainly wasn’t wrong about it being a criminal headquarters.

“She seems sort of tense.” Rose swiped through the pictures of Daphne on the tablet they’d provided.

“Can be.”

Lou sat on the arm of an adjacent chair, dressed in an attractive black suit with three-quarter sleeves, enough to showcase her multiple bracelets and watch for an internally drooling Debbie, who had thrown on a billowy white button-down and black leather pants.

“Good body. Good boobs. Huge features. Eyes like Bambi.” Rose leaned forward to get a better view, even with her glasses on. “Yeah. She can take quite a lot.”

The overarching exchange between Debbie and Lou consisted of far too articulate nods, head tilts, jaw shifting, and a signature smirk from Debbie. 

Lou had to look away to hide her amusement. 

________________

  
  


“Could I talk to you for a minute?”

Lou ushered Debbie past the half-wall that constituted as the next room, leaving Nine Ball with a flirtatious grin as she sat with her heavy-duty laptop.

“I asked you to get me a hacker,” Debbie whispered, eyes low as Lou pulled her in close and against the wall.

Without so much as a look in the eye, their apparent frustration established the conversation well.

“She’s one of the best hackers on the East Coast.”

“Oh, I’m honoured,” Debbie began, still looking straight ahead.

“She has other clients, they don’t know her real name, either.”

Now was the time to be compelled to make eye contact. “I’m sorry, other clients? Now?”

Lou shifted on her hip to stand closer, more directly in front of Debbie, who felt an unwarranted shiver down her spine. How much she liked being figuratively pressed with her back against the wall by the only person she’d ever loved.

_What?_

“Yeah,” Lou said with a testing, tight drawl.

Debbie tried to ignore the sweat on her inner thighs. “Well, did you tell her what her cut was?”

Lou hesitated, trying to read what Debbie seemed to be hiding well. “Of course.”

“And?”

But Lou only gave a slow, measured shrug that only further pushed Debbie over the edge. She peeked her head around the corner to find smoke dripping from Nine Ball’s mouth. Lou’s eyes raked over Debbie’s body where they were standing. Her head came back around and gestured with an exasperated contempt. “She’s smoking.”

Lou just grinned, tilting her head in a way that suggested both, _you don’t mind it so much when I do it,_ and, _we were kids once._

Debbie got very lost, and very quickly found, in Lou’s suggestive gaze. _What I would do to stick my tongue in her mouth right now and take out that stupid piece of gum that’s always fucking there. She’d probably have backup already built in._

_Useless._

She needed fresh air. Or a kiss to alleviate some of the tension. 

Rounding the corner instead, she began to make a proper introduction to their new hacker. 

Lou just leaned against the wall, staring happily into space, listening with pleasure to Debbie try to make friends. 

__________________

  
  


“Wouldn’t masks of Daphne Kluger’s face be kind of unsettling? She might not know who’s who, even with the real one in front of her.”

“That’s inconsiderate and rather belittling of you, Ocean,” Lou said. “What distracts a pre-menopausal future ex-fashion designer on the verge of accidental retirement?”

“Oh, and what I said is inconsiderate and belittling? That just sounds like a lot of things that haven’t happened to her yet. But probably the same thing that distracts a very small, anxious child.”

“I’ve got it.”

They had plenty of good old-fashioned fun when Rose met with Daphne for lunch. 

When the diva in the maroon dress finally caught on to Rose’s distraction, Debbie and Lou quickly stepped out of the line of sight, giggling uncontrollably once they did so. 

They could only uphold stern faces while powering bubble guns for so long. 


	19. The One With Tammy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three old pals reunite. They sign on a pickpocket. More pining.

At home, after a refreshing introduction to their pickpocket, Constance, involving Subway and both of their watches stolen and returned, they sat at Lou’s poker table sorting through ideas for their next puzzle piece: the Fence. 

“What about him?” Lou’s sleep mask (from a pleasant nap) was poised on her forehead as she held out a picture of a brooding man. 

She wore the same shirt she’d worn when they’d assumed the same position looking for a hacker. When she made the world’s saddest paper airplane that Debbie had dodged. The blonde’s eyes lingered perhaps a bit too long on Debbie’s chest where her subtle cleavage peeked through her black silk robe. 

Debbie’s arms were long since crossed. “Well, he’s a ‘him’.”

“So?”

“Don’t want a ‘him’.”

“Because it’s a ‘him’ or because it’s a  _ ‘him _ ’?”

“No, he’s not a ‘ _ him _ ’, I barely know the guy.”

“What’s wrong with a ‘him’?” 

Debbie’s shoulders tightened with the precision of her point. “A ‘him’ gets noticed, a ‘her’ gets ignored, and for once we want to be ignored.”

Lou’s eyes lit up with a practically visible lightbulb. Debbie turned back to look at her as the word stunned the air between them, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it herself.

Memories of champagne kisses, pad thai heartburn, and aggressively involuntary lady fluids soaking the expensive hotel sheets went hand-in-hand with that two-syllable spell.

“What about Tammy?”

_________________

  
  


Her life had been busy with bearing two children and obsessively training her body to ‘bounce back’ as her fellow mothers in her book club dismally referred to it.

Tammy’s garage was just as organized as every other room in her massive suburban palace outside of the city. Her husband had inherited the house, and shortly after they were married had it completely remodeled to fit the twenty-first century ideal. Their pool, alone, was big enough to host two or three YMCA large Water Aerobics classes at the same time. The thought of her children sleepwalking into the deep end in the middle of the night had haunted her to her very core, until they installed locks on every door and window that kept everyone securely shut in. 

She enjoyed making smoothies, but still had never quite mastered the art of deep breathing when she was stressed. She was generally a nervous person, who always inhaled in short, shallow breaths. 

That had only gotten worse as she’d gotten older. 

Her son seemed not to hear her when she asked him to take his activity outside. But she provided no reinforcement as her cell phone began to ring with a caller ID that she hadn’t seen in years, and had asked to stop calling after she had her second child. She didn’t fancy any connections with a federal corrections facility, even if it meant hearing from someone who’d provided her one of the best orgasms of her life. She tried not to think about that, either.

“Debbie, I am with my family, I told you - ”

_ “I’m outside.”  _

“What?”

_ “I’m in your garage.” _

Tammy sighed. There would be no easy way out of this.

The infamous Debbie Ocean was contentedly sucking on a red lollipop from one of Tammy’s jars.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were in jail?”

Debbie hummed. “I got out.”

For many years, Deb had been led to believe that Tammy was out of the game, focusing on her family life, but as the arrangement of the garage seemed to portray, it looked more like she’d simply begun leading a life of secrecy for herself. 

“Look at this...I thought you retired.”

Tammy tried to uphold herself, putting down the memories of their hotel escapade and the awkward visit (or two) to Debbie in prison. It was hard not to explore the criminal physically from head to toe. It was almost unfair how good she looked. “I did.”

“Not as exciting as hijacking trucks that are smuggling dishwashers from Canada, right?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t do that anymore….”

Debbie pointed her lollipop towards the woman that was once a fiery redhead and had now gone bleached blonde. “But you were so very good at it.” Tammy became increasingly flustered as she backed up towards a stack of boxes. 

“Thank you.”

She seemed to black out from the conversation until Debbie asked, “You’re not bored out here, are you, Tam-Tam?”

She was cornered. Tammy couldn’t quite tell why she liked it. “No, I’m not bored out here at all. Why would you ask that?”

“Because I need a fence.”

Tammy gaped at her in disbelief. “Well, I told you I don’t do that anymore, I am out.”

“It’s a big job.”

“I don’t care.”

But as though nothing had changed, Tammy was easy to give in to pleasure and adventure, and Debbie was good at taking. 

  
  


_____________

  
  


The troupe gathered in Lou’s loft, all together for the first time, on April 11th, 2018.

Debbie had put her very private 3D printer skills to use and curated a small-scale model of the Met, available for everyone to inspect.

Every newcomer and old friend found their seats facing where Debbie and Lou began their presentation.

The lights dimmed and Lou sat with one leg perched on a step stool, sideways on the edge of the stage. Debbie leaned against it, just to the left of the projector screen. 

Lou found there was no better place for her eyes to be than watching Debbie Ocean in action. Even in university, she’d always sat at the front of the class, legs actually  _ under  _ the desk for a change, every feature attentive when the brunette got up to present. 

Debbie explained the timeline and the overall execution of the job that had become the only baby she’d ever cared for. And she tried to ignore the burning of Lou’s eyes, but that proved hard not to care about.

The blonde liked the way Debbie’s hand fit in her pocket, and how her wrist so boldly showed off Danny Ocean’s watch.

How she commanded a room.

“So go home, get your affairs in order, because tomorrow we begin pulling off one of the biggest jewelry heists in history.”

Debbie took a seat on the edge of the stage in synchronization with her last word, and let it hang in the air before looking over at Lou.

Lou simply looked back, flicking her red lighter in synchronization with her rising feelings of a burning, passionate, deep-seated love for the woman on the other side of the stage.

It was little things that made those feelings grow; the way Debbie’s eyes danced with fireflies of promise and wisdom, the way Lou’s jaw shifted that somehow was sexier than anything Debbie had ever seen, the way both of them seemed to have the most perfect hands.

Neither of them had been raised in environments where talking about their feelings was encouraged. 

This could take a while.

___________________

  
  


Once the blueprint for the Toussaint had been retrieved from the signal on Rose’s glasses, it was only a matter of minutes before they could feel the presence of the necklace, however fraudulent.

Tammy couldn’t help but notice the way Lou seemed to be standing far too closely in Debbie’s personal space when the brunette brought the finished product out into the world for something to  _ not  _ be happening.

She had predicted it twenty-one years ago in that dream-like hotel, and she was going to be right.

_______________

  
  


“They’ve got every inch of this place covered.”

Dressed in her mustard yellow dress shirt, sleeves tantalizingly rolled up, and black vest to top it all off, Lou rose from her seat just as Debbie sat down.

Every outfit just kept getting better. The brunette had never found an explanation of public bathrooms so attractive as it stood there with its powerfully long legs and thighs that could easily have her in a blissful chokehold - 

“How much space do you need to plant it on somebody?

“I don’t know, nine feet?” Constance wagered.

“And how long is it gonna take us to create a nine-foot blind spot?”

“Moving a camera? Bit by bit...ten...twelve days?”

Debbie raised her eyebrows in Lou’s direction as the blonde rubbed her hands together absently.

“How long did it take you to figure all this out?” Amita.

Debbie finished the sip of her tea. “Five years, eight months, and twelve days.”

Lou sat back in her chair, taking her smirk with her as she crossed her legs. A smirk that said she’d never been so proud. Or to anyone else, something that said,  _ I would annihilate your pussy right this second, on this very floor, if I could. _

If they did that sort of thing.


	20. The One With the Heist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night of the biggest jewelry heist in history. Allegedly. The night of a few other things, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!! TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT!!! WINK WINK WINK WINK....I cranked out this whole chapter just today, I feel so proud. I moved back to school and now have literally nothing to do and nowhere to go for more than a week. SO MUCH TO COME (ALSO WINK) STAY TUNED!! THANK YOU FOR READING AND COMMENTING YOUR KIND WORDS!!

“Can’t we just go to this? Do we have to steal stuff?”

“ _Yes.”_ Debbie and Lou’s reply in unison sat in the air like they’d been waiting for someone to ask. 

“Where is she?” Debbie asked. Lou fiddled with an 8-Ball where she sat on the staircase while Tammy answered. 

“Table four, ten o’clock. Straightest shot to the bathroom without putting her in Siberia.”

“There’s a blank spot next to her.”

“For her date,” Tammy informed. Debbie rubbed her palms on her jeans restlessly, waiting for Lou’s question to drop, next.

“Who’s her date?” Lou asked after a moment of figuring _someone_ would step up to answer.

Tammy looked between the back of Debbie’s head to Lou’s tight jaw and back again.

Eyes fixed on the screen and stomach churning with guilt, Debbie replied, “I don’t know.”

_____________

“How did you ever fall for this schmuck? Seriously.”

Debbie rinsed and spit in the downstairs bathroom sink while Tammy removed her heels after working the chairman’s dinner. 

“Lou and I were going through a rough patch, and I really wanted a big score of my own.”

“So he roped you in?”

“Mm, not really.”

“What, told you the truth?”

“Only way to con a con, right?”

Tammy knew the history, the boundless, raw, delicious history between Debbie and Lou, even though they’d barely stayed in touch over the years. She enjoyed hearing the story again, the story that told her there had definitely been a hint of something more between her two friends before everything went downhill. Quite literally, for Debbie. 

  
  


But as she sat there, bow tie undone around her neck, across from Debbie in her jeans and black silk robe, she picked up on the sense of hope that there could still be a future for her two best friends. And something would crack open sooner than later.

____________

A day later, Nine Ball and Tammy had been looking over the updated seating chart after Tammy had brought it home from Vogue, and made a fascinating discovery.

“Lou,” Tammy called upstairs.

“Yeah.” 

“You might want to come down here for a minute.”

“I might not.”

But Tammy knew her well enough. The blonde’s heeled boots clicked across the second floor and echoed on the metal staircase as she joined them. 

“What is it?”

Nine Ball gestured to her computer monitor. “Your girl’s a bad liar.”

Tammy stayed quiet, watching Lou’s every move. 

Lou took the empty seat beside the desk and focused her sharp eyes on the blue strip next to Daphne Kluger’s name. 

It didn’t take long to find the tipping point. 

Lou stood up in one fluid motion and marched towards the door. Nine Ball lifted her chin in curiosity, feeling the energy of Lou’s intention, and Tammy bit her tongue in anticipation of what was about to go down. 

Once Lou was out the door with a _slam,_ Nine Ball looked up at Tammy after a moment. “You know you’re not breathing, right?”

Tammy swallowed, but it turned into a small choke. “They’re either gonna kill each other, or they’re finally gonna realize they’re soulmates."

Nine ran her nails across her lower lip in thought. “Sounds like they’re gonna kill each other regardless.”

Lou crossed the backstreet outside towards the concrete-laiden beach overlooking a small corner of the bay, where her conniving, lying, selfish best friend sat comfortably on a slab, hair blowing mindlessly in the wind. 

“Hey,” Lou called. “We need to talk.”

Debbie stood up, turning around to face her. But Lou continued.

“You’d better tell me this is not what I think it is.”

“What?”

Lou let out a half-scoff as she quickly scanned their surroundings before honing in on Debbie’s features. “Claude Becker.”

Debbie’s lying face was sweet, and it was sickening. Lou had seen it enough directed at others, but not to her. 

“I didn’t do that,” Debbie said in a low purr.

Lou’s patience was worn thin. “I’m not a croupier, okay? Or a tourist with a bucket of quarters. Don’t con me.”

Debbie heard the understated power and conviction in Lou’s voice, until it became much less so. 

“You do not run a job in a job.”

The brunette tried to remain calm and quiet, counteracting her partner’s boiling attitude.  
“It’s not going to matter.”

Lou glanced briefly at the tide as though it was listening in. “We are going to get caught.”

“Stop it. We’re not.” It was light and matter-of-fact, enough to piss Lou off even more.

Enough for her to look away. Which neither of them liked.

“Why do you do this?” Lou asked, unable to look anywhere but Debbie, after all. “Why can’t you just do a job? Why does there always have to be an asterisk?”

Debbie shrugged. And felt the disappointment and warning that curdled within Lou. But she knew there was no point trying to rationalize. 

Lou had to gather all of her conviction she had left to say these words to Debbie, whether or not they were true. “You frame him, I walk.”

There was a dead-set feeling in Lou’s eyes, which appeared much more green in the light of the late April sunset reflecting off of the river. Every year of their partnership could be seen in those eyes, every loss, every win, every feeling they’d ever accepted or denied, and everything that was yet to come. 

There was an emotional honesty in them, now, that Debbie couldn’t miss. A look that told her there was no one else in the world who understood her better. She missed having someone in her life who knew her better than she knew herself.

“Stop,” Debbie said calmly, unsure of what to do with the look in Lou's eyes.

But then it turned to a sadder, emptier bitterness before Lou turned away. “This is just like last time.”

“Lou.” Debbie followed her to the shoreline. “Lou!”

The blonde turned, hands on her hips, but Debbie could tell she still had to fight for her place in Lou’s attention. “He sent me to jail.”

It sat. Lou’s heart ached and stomach churned at the longing to make all things right for Debbie. To send Claude to prison, herself. But the thought of Debbie putting herself at risk, again, with all of them behind her, was still feeling uncomfortable.

“You have _no_ idea what that’s like.”

Lou’s expression softened as she watched Debbie’s vulnerability unfold as it rarely did. 

Debbie knew she’d have to drop the entire job if Lou left. 

She’d drop everything if Lou left.

Drop everything and run. After her. 

But as much as Debbie insisted on maintaining her sense of serenity, Lou maintained a blunt cover of her real emotions. “Yeah. Well, he’s gonna do it again.”

Deflection. Projection. Protection. 

Anything to hide what they were truly feeling. 

Debbie shook her head slowly, meeting Lou’s gaze with a matched softness. “No, he’s not.” As though she were assuring her that the nightmares she used to have about her father catching her watering down his booze were just nightmares, after all. 

She’d never had anyone to do that. The brunette’s small smirk grew as her eyes remained locked on Lou’s. Telling her everything she could ever want to hear. 

Saying more than any words could ever say.

“He’s not.”

And Lou hated it, knowing in her bones that she was right, but somehow, she trusted her. 

  
  


___________________

  
  


“Good. Switching cameras.”

Nine Ball and Lou sat in Central Park tracing the blind spot over the Met security cameras with Debbie as the woman-on-the-ground. 

Lou tuned out all communication between the skilled hacker and the con specialist, for she instead became intensely focused on the turtleneck Debbie was wearing, and how certain she was that it didn’t belong to Debbie.

But regardless of what belonged to whom, she was even more certain of how good Debbie looked wearing Lou's turtleneck. 

_“Twelve feet. Good job. Thank you, Nine Ball.”_

“Easy. Don’t mention it.”

Lou folded the newspaper in her lap. “What’s hard?”

Nine Ball gave her a bashfully pleased look. “Tammy told me about you two.”

“It’s true. She squirts.”

Nine Ball gaped. “My God. Who?”

Lou adjusted her sunglasses and got to her feet.

“Lunch is on me.”

_______________

  
  


Tammy arrived at the loft in a rush of apologies, but she brought with her a substantial collection of designer pieces that would adorn the women of the heist for their adventure at the gala. 

Everyone swarmed around her as she passed out each piece in its secretive cover. Debbie left her station where she’d been going over the printed model of the museum with Constance, and Lou hoisted herself from her deep armchair, the two of them meeting in the middle. Perhaps their mutual smile in greeting, although they’d been in the same room for hours, stemmed from a girlish crush that grew two sizes every time they saw each other. Lou liked the low cut of Debbie’s shirt. Debbie admired the familiar tattoo of the chemical formula of alcohol on Lou’s right bicep that had been there since the year after graduation. 

_Has she always been this much taller than me?_

Lou was still in heels. Debbie had taken hers off. Of course. 

It was just adrenaline. Just nerves. Jobs always brought them closer. They had for over two decades. 

This was nothing new. 

Except that it _definitely_ was. 

Lou couldn’t decide if she hated or loved it. 

Debbie knew something had to be done about it. 

But the two of them knowing each other, _it_ didn’t have to be addressed to know that _it_ would have to wait. 

____________

  
  


“Problem.”

Debbie and Tammy looked up from their prized collection of Hilda Schneider identification cards from over the years as Lou walked towards them, boots heavy and jaw set in a worrisome way. 

But _God,_ she looked good. What could possibly be the problem?

“With?” Debbie asked.

“From Rose.” Lou handed Debbie the phone to show her the video of the necklace removal technique.

Debbie’s eyes widened. 

“Oh, God,” Tammy whispered, ready to pass out. Lou bit her cheek, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The other shoe, in this case, meaning the easy way out - the job being over, though even that would prove difficult at this point, or for the miraculous solution that had kept the blonde out of prison to save their necks. Something had to work.

But the three of them weren’t that resourceful this late in the game. 

It was the first Monday in May. 

“Come on,” Debbie begged quietly.

“What’s the problem?” Nine Ball called from across the room. 

The three old friends looked up, spotting the quiet woman behind her computer monitors.

While they reviewed the video over Nine Ball’s shoulder, Tammy had to look away again with the overpowering feeling of vomit gurgling in her stomach.

Debbie and Lou couldn’t look away, except when they managed a tense and understanding look at one another. Or when Lou felt Debbie's hand on her lower back. 

________________

  
  


_“You are not doing this for me. You are not doing this for you. Somewhere out there is an eight year old girl, lying in bed, dreaming of being a criminal. Let’s do this for her.”_

Lou smiled at the sound of Debbie’s voice in her ear, no matter how silly and slightly over saturated the speech might have been. She tried to sneak the occasional glance at Nine’s screen as they were marooned together in the Halal truck.

Too prideful to admit it, she used her delivery of the hacker’s dinner - with hot sauce - as an excuse to make one last attempt at catching what Debbie was wearing before heading inside the museum.

After the food had been served, the epicac dished out with it, and Daphne’s puking spell was completed, they collectively breathed a little easier.

But that could prove dangerous. Lou listened to the dulcet tones of Debbie’s flawless German frustrations as she and Yen stripped the exhibit of the rest of the crown jewels while the museum was on lockdown.

One the zirconium necklace was retrieved from the moat by Tammy and the guests were set free, Lou was on the move once again, delivering vehicles and jewelry to their designated points and getting herself dressed in the proper attire. 

She’d gotten her beaten-up bike to work for this specific occasion, and only harbored a twinge of guilt for her ability to taste the new machine she would get at the end of all this.

Debbie waited for Lou on the corner, on the adjacent block of the museum, using her bracelet as a distraction from the feeling in her legs and her gut, like the bubble guns they’d used all those weeks ago.

But time seemed weightless now, as it did after every job. They’d always worked side by side. Neither of them was used to not having the other in their space when under the smooth, blissful pressure of a con.

Now they had to make up for every moment of lost time, however weightless.

On cue, the partners of twenty-five years appeared to one another, sparkling in the streetlights in complimentary green and gold.

Their eyes met with a deeply intelligent trust and promise, everything that had been building up in the past month and a half, and everything they didn’t know about before that, finally being put on the table.

But there were no poker chips, cards, or dice, this time.

Just them.

And the eye-catching, familiar, central strip of diamonds that dripped down Lou's chest as they beamed at one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> girl u got that yUMmy YUM that YUMmy YUM that YUMmy YUMMY 
> 
> what changed my mind about it was Aliya Janell's choreo video to it feat. couple Nicole Kirkland and Aryan Davenport and Janell's husband Tallie Brinson. THE CHEMISTRY AND THE SEXUAL ENERGY AND THE GAYNESS I'M HERE FOR IT K PLS WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO6Higd2JuI&ab_channel=AliyaJanell


	21. The One Like a Nora Ephron Movie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-heist adrenaline and vulnerability. The team reunites at Lou's loft, but with a twist. Pizza and Nora Ephron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy I was half-asleep half an hour ago and I didn't expect to finish this chapter tonight but here we ARE. I am elated and in love and I cannot WAIT to give you what's next.

Lou looked both ways before crossing the street, and once she merged into the bike path, Debbie turned around to invite her for a walk.

The brunette’s black and gold gown left her back exposed, the opening coming to a point just below her left hip. It was apparent to Lou that there was no bra involved, but the dress teased in such a way it left her wondering if her best friend hadn’t bothered to wear underwear, either. 

But she’d learned a long time ago that some things would always remain a secret with Debbie Ocean. 

Once the blonde sidled up beside her, platform heels making a softer announcement than usual on the sidewalk, Debbie gave her another once - or twice - over. Lou fiddled with parts of the pantsuit as almost a necessity, feeling slightly uncomfortable with just how comfortably it fit her. 

“That thing was made for you,” Debbie said with praise.

Lou had a sweep of confidence with which she answered, “You’re wearing that dress like you’re doing it a favour.”

With her left hand, Lou traced the diamonds around her neck absently, and when she swung her right arm between them it brushed against Debbie’s watch. 

When they came to the next intersection, they stopped. “Are we just walking around the block until we come back to your bike?”

Lou shrugged. “You started walking, I just followed you.”

They shared a familiar laugh, but neither of them moved. Instead, just because they could, they watched the lights change and the endless waves of limousines and professional-looking SUVs sweep through on their way from the gala. 

Debbie looked East. Lou looked West. Their hands met in the middle, clasping rather suddenly but with a bated, tender silence, as though somehow they knew this was more than just a friendly, affectionate, girl-power hand-hold.

Their hearts skipped all too many beats before their heads turned and they looked at one another. 

And one word fell from their lips.

“Pizza.”

  
  


As they headed back down the street and Lou pulled out her phone to order their celebratory dinner, Debbie expected Lou to change her mind and link arms with her, instead, as they’d done so many times before. 

But Lou’s fingers didn’t move. 

She ordered two large pizzas, Debbie whispering to interject with her specifications.

“Don’t forget the jalapeno peppers. And get chicken with the pineapple instead of ham.”

Lou gave her a horrified look, moving the phone away from her cheek as though they could hear her disgust. 

Once she’d ordered their preferences, remembering the garlic parmesan sauce that they both favoured, she hung up and put her phone back in her pocket.

Debbie defended herself. “You’ve always known I like pineapple.”

“It’s the chicken part I was ready to fight you on. Prison changed you.”

“Just trust me. I will force feed you if I have to.”

“Oh, who could say no to that?”

The well-loved little bike appeared, parked behind the Halal truck, once they’d made their trek around the block. 

Lou handed her the spare helmet in the compartment beneath the seat, helping her collect the train of her gown to rest between them. Debbie’s arms wrapped around the blonde’s torso and the engine revved in response. 

They both seemed to fade into a tandem existence, one that was vibrant and opaque, and captured the energy of meditation - something they’d both tried enough times to know it wasn’t their thing. 

There was no hope communicating while driving home, but they looked forward to the entire team reconvening at Lou’s.

When they arrived, home was already the loft, as cozy and familiar as any apartment they’d ever lived in. They were greeted with sore feet, giggly smiles, hoarse throats, music, and the several pairs of designer shoes scattered across the room. Rose sat at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey, and Tammy stood before her with a glass of wine, almost supervising to make sure the fashion designer didn’t pass out. 

Nine Ball was picking a new record from the collection. Amita and Constance were teaching each other internet dances in their bare feet, spilling their beverages on the floor. Better the floor than their dresses. 

Rose gave a weak wave and Tammy smiled warmly at her old friends. “She was high on adrenaline not two minutes ago. You missed the world’s greatest crash.”

“I think we’re witnessing it right now,” Lou added, grabbing two ciders for herself and Debbie and sitting down beside Rose at the bar. 

“All the pieces are accounted for, obviously except for the one around your neck, Lou, and the one in Becker’s pocket.”

"Pecker's bocket," Rose echoed drowsily.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Debbie said with a considerate bow before putting an arm around her, and giving Rose her credit where it was due. “You were both _brilliant_ out there tonight. Diamonds don’t quite cover how grateful I am to know such skilled professionals.”

“Kluger looked killer in pink,” Lou emphasized, uncapping the two bottles mysteriously from underneath the bar, passing one to Debbie with a sparkle in her eye. “And Tammy scared me more than my dad ever did.” The four of them clinked glasses, enjoying the sound of the younger women dancing in the living room and laughing over their music. 

Rose smiled, well-past the crossroads of tipsy and exhausted, and touched Lou’s face before looking very intently in the direction of the sink. “I love you.”

“Alright, sweetheart, let’s get you to the hotel,” Tammy insisted, rounding the counter. They were both still dressed, but Tammy’s hair was down and Rose had a blanket around her shoulders. 

Lou interjected. “You aren’t staying here?”

Tammy replied far too casually as she helped Rose off of her barstool. “Nope.”

Her two old friends searched her face and her tone for any ulterior motives, but found nothing but her characteristic sweetness and the transparency of a fence.

Until they caught her wink and the words, “There’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge, next to all the diamonds.”

Debbie and Lou didn’t need to look at one another to feel their mutual acknowledgement of what she meant.

But a very demanding, hungry part of them rang loudly in their ears.

They were exhausted. Riding high. Not thinking straight.

At least one of those things was naturally a given for both of them. 

Before any more could be said, the other girls swarmed around the fence and the fashion designer to say their goodbyes for the evening, everyone buzzed and happy enough to hug and kiss and be far too loud for this time of night. 

Once Tammy and Rose left, Nine, Amita, and Constance turned off the music and rushed over to the kitchen, where Lou and Debbie were taking her sweet time with their ciders. 

“Okay, we want to see your club so badly it’s, like, all we can think about,” Amita chimed in, sipping from the curly straw in her glass of something fruity that Lou could smell and didn’t like. 

Debbie wondered aloud when Constance rested her head on Lou’s shoulder. “When did you have time to curl your hair?” 

“Follow-up question, where were you keeping a curling iron?” Lou.

The pickpocket flashed her winning smile. “My vag. Duh.”

“I’m continually impressed by the youth of today,” Debbie commented, getting a little more focused on her cider. 

“I’m more concerned about where she put it after,” Amita declared, pure concern in her eyes.

Nine Ball and Lou simultaneously winced.

Constance picked at the beaded designs on her sleeve. “Yeah, I’m not even really sure what I did, but whatever’s happening down there right now just feels like the colour red. That, and the last ten minutes of that episode of Hot Ones with Charlize Theron.”

“You’re a cold-blooded badass, that’s why it’s not bothering you,” Amita calculated.

“Checks out.”

“Anyway, Pussy Spice and ‘Mita and I were gonna head out to the club,” Nine said. “You coming?”

“If it ain’t us, somebody is,” Constance said with a cackle. Amita pinched her, garnering no reaction but disappointment. “You know I have no feeling in my elbows, right?”

“Then how’d you know I pinched you?”

“I just knew. You have a resting pinch face.”

Nine Ball and Debbie shared a barely contained laugh.

Lou addressed the original question. “It’s past my bedtime. Tip your servers. No reason not to, now.”

Constance tried again. “What about you, D.E.B.S., you coming? Clubbing, or otherwise?”

Nine Ball and Amita’s alcohol was catching up to them, their giggles becoming less discreet.

Debbie replied, “If Lou said it’s past her bedtime, I should’ve been asleep a long time ago.”

“Yeah, and we should’ve been rich a long time ago, but it’s never too late.”

“This is as drunk as we’re gonna get, by the way,” Amita assured. “We’re crashing at the Four Seasons. Rose got us all rooms.”

"We've got pizza coming; are you sure you don't want to stay?"

"Constance was craving burritos."

"I was craving burritos," Constance repeated.

"We're having burritos," Nine Ball confirmed, now suspiciously.

The five of them shared the silence as though it were a joke that Lou and Debbie weren't quite in on.

“Don’t forget about breakfast tomorrow,” Lou reminded them.

“Aw, fuck yeah, breakfast at 3pm.” Constance fist bumped the air. 

“Brunch. Noon. Be here,” Debbie said with a smirk.

The three youngest women said their affectionate goodnights after a little more prodding.

“Beautiful work tonight, ladies,” Debbie said as they each embraced by the door. 

“The club doesn’t know what’s coming.” Lou.

“We do,” Nine Ball chimed in before the three of them snorted.

“Oh, get lost,” Lou playfully herded them out into the night as they cheered excitedly and headed down the street to hail a cab.

The blonde shut the doors behind them, assured that she could lock them for the night and didn’t have to worry about waiting up for any drunk people.

She’d been wearing her pantsuit for less than thirty minutes, but the night had been so long it felt like it was a part of her already. 

Debbie’s blonde wig was coming off as she headed to the bathroom to take all the pins out. 

Lou’s eyes followed the way her hips moved in that shimmering golden flame dress, the way the tender muscles in her back and her arms rippled as she had them poised above her head. 

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. A frustrating distraction. 

“Pizza’s here,” she called, to which Debbie responded with a delicately excited gasp. 

Lou retrieved the pizza from the delivery person, greeted by a slack jaw and wandering eyes as they took in the tall, sparkly blonde in a sketchy-looking warehouse by the river. 

She tipped them extra for their troubles. And because she could. 

Dropping one of the boxes on the counter on her way to the bathroom, Lou grabbed the bottle of champagne to go with the second box, which she opened, and stood with it in the doorway while Debbie worked at the rest of the pins in her hair.

Quietly, with an expressive understanding and acknowledgment of the evening’s accomplishment, they both dived into the soft, hot, glorious taste orgasm, Lou sinking to the floor with the box in her lap.

Debbie’s hair came loose little by little as her pins came out, the two of them listening to the sounds of New York outside and the hum of the refrigerator in the common area.

When she was finished, she maneuvered herself into a sitting position next to Lou with her heavy dress material. Lou passed her the bottle for the second sip.

“Benny Andersson called, he wants his boots back,” Deb said as she accepted, reaching for another slice before she’d finished what was in her mouth. 

Lou made no joke about her manners, this time. Perhaps they were too tired, perhaps their thoughts were in entirely different places. “I always identified more with Björn.”

“The Björn Legacy.”

“The Björn Ultimatum.”

“Björn and raised.”

Lou mumbled the singsongy lyrics to “Björn This Way”.

It barely took all four improvisations to have them giggling like teenagers, losing their breath and practically choking on their late-night dinner. 

There was less than half a pizza left after their laughter followed by comfortable silence was up, the box finding a new home abandoned on the tile floor. 

Together they worked to get Lou’s boots off, using the energy of a thousand Amazons to achieve the barefoot state. Moments later, while Debbie’s leg was in Lou’s lap trying to undo the intricate straps of her heels, Lou commented, “I thought you liked champagne."

The bottle was still nearly full. 

“How much do you remember?” Debbie asked instead. 

Lou lifted her head from her focus on the shoe straps, looking over at Deb through her fringe, messier and cuter than ever. “Of what?”

“The hotel. Grad. With Tammy.”

Lou scratched an inconspicuous itch on her cheek, trying to return to her work before Debbie could catch her blush, but in the act she missed the brunette’s cheeks already being red. 

The pizza had soaked everything up from their ciders, and recharged them. They’d never been more sober, or awake. 

“Some. Obviously Tammy’s signature move.”

“Never forget.”

Lou flicked some of her hair out of her eyes as she looked up, searching the empty space for her memories and leaning her head back against the wall. Debbie’s shoes were now off, tossed about the floor, but Lou’s long, genderless, warm fingers rested on the brunette’s ankles like they’d always belonged there.

They’d massaged each other before. They’d touched each other everywhere. They’d seen and done it all, as friends. 

But at some point in their history, that had changed. 

There was a magnetism beneath Lou’s fingertips, her gentle hold just below Debbie’s knee. 

The brunette noticed. “You haven’t had much to drink, either.”

Lou’s response was almost immediate, requiring no thought on either of their parts. “I want to remember tonight.” Their bodies were as close as they could be without Debbie fully seating herself in Lou’s lap, their fingers brushing with every measured breath. “ _All_ of it.”

And with that single look, that candid expression of Lou’s beautiful and quiet and loud thoughts, Debbie knew she wasn’t talking about the heist.

But no part of her felt uncomfortable or embarrassed at the implication that there could be _more_ than the job they’d so flawlessly pulled off. It almost seemed as though what Lou had said aligned perfectly with what she’d been dreaming about before, after, and in between her lustful dreams about stealing jewels and plotting revenge. What they’d been trying to hide from one another for weeks, months, if not years. What they’d been denying for their own childish sense of pride.

The blonde’s heart raced, only slightly wishing she hadn’t said those words. Like her schoolgirl crushes, the two of them were suddenly young again, all their physical years having evaporated, but their thickly-rooted trust in one another seemed to suddenly surge into action compelled by exponential maturity. 

Debbie was ready, for a moment, to confess to Lou her true feelings, but knew that her friend would write it off as an adrenaline high that she would both regret and deny the following day. Nothing she’d ever said in this context had ever had any meaning such as this, but Lou knew her inside and out. 

That’s why Lou said nothing, either. 

No one had ever known her like Debbie did. Sometimes that scared her. 

Completely terrified, and empowered by the cosmic sensation that they were both exactly where they were supposed to be (whether that be on the bathroom floor wearing designer brands and million dollar diamonds or simply existing in each other’s space with nothing more to hide, it was hard to say), they recognized that it had been quiet for too long. Too long for them.

The next move would change their lives, and their _life_ , forever. 

Perhaps it was Debbie brushing the fringe that curved over Lou’s eyebrows to see her eyes better.

Perhaps it was Lou’s hand that hadn’t stopped creeping up Debbie’s leg since the silence had filled in for the talking. 

Perhaps it was Debbie softly going in for the kiss, and Lou meeting her halfway.

They’d always been a team, even kissing had to look like it was both of their ideas. 

Two soft, tender mouths fell into one another as they’d done so easily all those years before, sparking the same gut feeling that tasted just like champagne and dreams come true. 

Dreams that took them over two decades to recognize had been on replay. 

Their tongues were shy at first, trusting purely in one another’s lips and the sudden rush of dopamine to their brains to drive them slowly and meticulously forward, each gentle movement of the kiss charged with a delicious and substantial intention. But it was Lou who pushed through their elementary shyness, slipping her tongue between Debbie’s lips and waiting for the thoughtful retaliation.

The blonde moaned softly and unexpectedly when Deb chased it with the claiming of her lower lip, teasing Lou on the edge of what had very suddenly become too erotic to control. 

Fires as old as their understanding of one another had been stoked within and showed no sign of being put out any time soon. 

The brunette wondered for only a moment why the heat between her legs had suddenly skyrocketed, for she tuned into the feeling of Lou’s fingers contracting against her upper thigh, just beneath the slit of her dress. Debbie had her best friend’s face in her hands, willing herself to believe that this was real, twenty-one years later. 

Lou had to come up for air, studying Debbie Ocean’s big brown doe eyes. “Holy shit.”

Debbie instinctively pulled away, cautious not to push, instead. 

But she still felt Lou’s hands on her. Lou’s glorious, tender, discreetly rough hands. 

“That was nice.” She retreated with her back against the wall again, the two of them staring into space. “The girls were right, though. It’s past our bedtime.”

It was a silly idea. Lou didn’t like talking about her feelings any more than she did. Or doing silly things. One of the reasons she loved Lou the way she did. 

There was no hurt, only the continued understanding that this probably was best to remain singularly a friendship.

“Are you tired?”

“No,” Debbie quickly answered. “You?”

“Not a chance.”

It was still an unrealistic expectation to think anything could happen. It would’ve already. They’d only had over twenty years together. Minus five. “We should sleep, anyway. We’re getting old.”

Every bone in her body told her to stay, told her to touch her again, told her to say what she was really feeling, but as she made to stand, Lou’s arm quite easily held her back. 

“No.”

Debbie let herself be stopped, heart suddenly pulsing, sweating blindingly in her chest. Lou got to her feet instead, holding out a hand to her best friend with the most genuine, personal emotion in her eyes that Debbie instantly knew she’d never shown anyone.

“I want you in my bed tonight.”

  
  
  
  


Time came to a screeching halt, and until now Debbie hadn’t been able to say she’d witnessed such a thing.

But when she took her partner’s hand, Lou wasn’t sure what to make of the involuntary warmth that queued itself behind her eyes. It was as though their fingers were touching for the first time, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan at the very end of _Sleepless In Seattle,_ but with the character development of _You’ve Got Mail._

_“I wanted it to be you,”_ Meg Ryan would say in the Central Park Garden, choked up and quiet. _“I wanted it to be you so badly.”_

Debbie and Lou’s real first kiss, on the floor of the abandoned warehouse theatre bathroom, was just as timid at first, but as it grew, became just as ardent. And as they climbed the cold metal staircase in the half-darkness with their hands bound, their story was already better than anything they’d ever seen by Nora Ephron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the Hanks/Ryan scenes for reference!! Two of my favourite movies of all time :) 
> 
> Sleepless In Seattle:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKPkm7BShUA&ab_channel=SwarupDhote
> 
> You've Got Mail:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55oQA4cwd6M&ab_channel=mattts777


	22. The One With the Makeup Wipes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The partners in crime finally, FINALLY become partners in other things, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hi hi my LOVELIES!!! I'm so happy to be back. It's been a rough month of adjusting into the fully online school life again and moving back into my apartment. I've been working on this chapter literally since the last update...so I guess a little less than a month, but I wanted it to be good. Many more juicy things coming soon, I'm just pleased to get this out to you at last. I hope you are satisfied! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND STAYING WITH ME! xoxo

SOURCE: Loubbie_93 on Instagram. Not sure who the artist is! 

Lou’s bedroom was the largest of them all, what used to be the smoking lounge in the theatre and stretched across the part of the loft just above the building entrance. Even if they were interrupted by their intoxicated counterparts, they at least had some privacy.

“Now what?” Debbie asked, her voice breaking with anticipation as they slowed to a stop in front of Lou’s bed. The blonde’s fingers played with the loose, coiled strands of Debbie’s hair that had first come loose from her costume. 

Lou smiled. “Kiss me again.”

For once, Debbie liked being told what to do. But just like the last time, Lou made a point of meeting her in the middle, exercising her own power in the situation.

They giggled against one another’s lips as Debbie’s hands softly clung to the green faux fur material on Lou’s shoulders and Lou claimed her waist with a firmness that brought their bodies flush together. 

The brunette searched for the discreet zipper at the back of Lou’s jumpsuit, pulling it down and slipping her fingers inside against her hot, smooth skin. Lou’s hands roamed over Debbie’s ass, very carefully discovering that there was no obvious closure on her gown, given that its design was not so orthodox. As their mouths made slow work of each other’s rising passion, Debbie encouraged Lou’s search to her right side, where the zipper was hidden well beneath the draping tulle sleeve.

Unable to focus on anything besides their fascination with one another’s bodies, they helped each other out of their clothes until they remained, as years ago, in only their underwear and warm, buzzing skin.

“I really like your body,” Debbie whispered, lips brushing over Lou’s jawline and kissing gently the soft spot behind her ear. “I like touching it.”

Lou’s jaw clenched in heat, tilting her neck to welcome her lover’s touch as her own fingers travelled just to the edge of the brunette’s g-string, a secret she’d kept well-hidden.

“I like this,” Lou replied, playfully snapping the elastic against her skin. “I wondered if you had anything on under there."

"I like that you were thinking about it."

"Just learning more about you when I thought I knew it all.”

Debbie tugged at her earlobe with her teeth. “I had an ambitious night.”

“Ambitious is putting it lightly.”

“Greedy?” A kiss. “Selfish?” Her thumbs over Lou’s bare breasts. “Generous?” Her nails down the blonde’s arms.

“We’re millionaires now, darling, we can call ourselves whatever we want.”

The decades-old desire to have Debbie Ocean on her back swelled inside of her, deepening at the feeling of their bare chests together, but Debbie beat her to it.

“I don’t want to talk about money, I don’t want to talk about anything.” Debbie gently nudged the blonde backward, her voice turning into a growl. “I just want to taste you again.”

Lou bit her lip, landing lightly with her anticipation on the elevated bed, met with the plushness of her duvet. She scooted back against the excessive pillows and for a moment, Debbie could only stand and watch her. 

“I’m listening,” Lou said, cutting through the warm, buzzing silence.

Deb’s eyes travelled over the slope of her neck, which divided and became the melodic curve her shoulders, down over the breasts that were so delightfully perfect in their smallness, perky with a smooth underside, and raked over the rest of her until she reached her toes.

Debbie crawled over her lover, trailing her nose and her tongue lightly over her chest on her way up. “You smell like you,” she said, inhaling just behind her ear. “It’s nice.”

“Thanks.”

The brunette added, nuzzling her nose against Lou’s cheek. “I missed you.”

Now was Lou’s turn to grow misty, her throat swelling considerably and too uncomfortably for this situation. She had no words, and she couldn’t speak if she wanted to.

“Do you trust me?” Debbie met her eyes, asking in a whisper and understanding Lou’s silence. 

Lou just nodded. She trusted Debbie more than she’d ever trusted herself. That was a problem she’d had some luck working through with her therapist, but maybe it wasn’t a problem at all. 

It was gorgeous, Debbie thought, seeing those blue eyes beaming up at her, relinquishing her power even for just a few minutes. 

“Let me take care of you,” she said softly, pinning Lou’s hands above her head, grateful for the headboard with handles and the chandelier at the center of the warehouse that cast a surprisingly illuminating glow on them both. Lou’s bed was massive, as soft and expensive-feeling as a five-star hotel, but as welcoming as her childhood bedroom, and with matching bedside lamps that told Debbie there was a chance they could potentially sleep here together more than once.

“I like this; is it new?” She asked somewhat facetiously about the rungs of the headboard as she began to run her tongue tantalizingly across Lou’s nipples.

Lou shifted underneath her, working hard to focus on the question while she gripped the cold metal. “I, uh...had it installed right after you left. Shit,” she breathed.

“Hmm,” Debbie acknowledged, nudging Lou’s hips forward to drag down her black cotton boyshorts. “What else did I miss?”

Lou seemingly had an answer ready to go. “The crippling disappointment and regret from not figuring out you wanted to fuck me sooner.”

“We both could’ve been a little clearer on that,” Debbie said with a smirk as she kissed the soft underside of Lou’s hot and tired feet, having her now completely naked and interchanging each gesture with a light suck or a bite.

A younger version of Lou appeared briefly as she giggled at the tickling sensation around her toes, covering her mouth automatically in her shyness. Debbie kissed her way back up between her thighs and teased at the heat that she’d been longing for since their lips met on the bathroom floor. A taste attached to a woman she never knew she’d been pining for over twenty years. 

Lou was almost willing some part of her body to feel nervous, to feel awkward or uncomfortable or even embarrassed, but as Debbie gripped her thighs and flattened her tongue softly against her core, she had never felt more beautiful.

But _dear God,_ Debbie thought, her taste was addicting. The physical recognition of her particular brand along with the psychological acknowledgement that she was finally pleasuring the only person she’d ever loved, that was more satisfaction than any job had ever provided her. How wet she was. How wet she was _for her._

Erections were dispensable. Making _Lou_ _wet_ was an incomparable feeling, but if she had to compare it, it was the closest thing to running a job.

No.

It was better. 

The blonde’s lanky and slender thighs spread further for Debbie as she moaned softly against her. Lou was concerned for her ability to relax, but it happened faster than she could even overthink. She let the vibrations wash over her, refusing to let anything interrupt them again. Not any insecurities, not a third person, not any emotional reservations. 

Just them. 

Now she was ready, as Deb seduced her dripping cunt with her witty tongue, every word ever spoken from her lips present in the pure skill that she shared.

The brunette stroked her hands over the sides of Lou’s tummy, the faint touch combined with her blissful concentration and firm, low oral rhythm, Lou’s back arched off the bed with a deep and gentle sigh. 

“Shit, that’s perfect….”

Hearing the timbre of her partner’s voice and feeling her body contort with pleasure upon her command was enough to make Debbie weak, and far too satisfied for her own good.

She sucked lightly at Lou’s clit, encouraging her towards her climax unexpectedly, as she’d had the intention to draw it out, but Lou got ahead of her. 

“Fucking hell, Deb, that’s it. So close,” she panted, landing back against the pillows and writhing against Debbie’s criminal mouth. 

Debbie smiled, working with focus as she slipped her thumb inside at the last minute, long and shapely, claiming the apex of Lou’s thighs as her own. 

Lou shook when her breath released in a compressed squeal, her thighs twitching as Debbie’s free hand grasped one of them again, licking at her with that irresistible brow of intent and increasing the speed of her thumb. She guided her through the waves as her body rocked, Lou’s head falling back with one hand in Debbie’s unfairly soft hair. 

The blonde’s makeup was smeared from the corners of her eyes with what had never before been tears.

Once her breathing slowed, Deb kissed her thigh, lingering, before crawling back up to kiss her lover. 

Now Lou had over twenty years of hunger bursting at the seams, her eyes hot and her jaw focused. If anything, her orgasm had awakened her with an almost feral motivation. Her firm hands grasped Debbie by the waist and thigh and flipped her with ease onto her back. 

“It’s your fucking turn, Jailbird.”

Deb’s unjustly smooth, slender toes with metallic black polish on the nails curled softly into the blankets, without Lou so much as touching her. 

“You’ve been so patient.” Debbie shook her head as the blonde bent forward on all fours to tease Deb’s lips with her own, her eyes saying exactly how long she might have to wait before they actually consummated.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever used that word to describe me before. It’s usually you.”

“I’m patient?”

“You’re only patient when you know you’ll get what you want,” Lou replied casually, mouth wandering to Debbie’s collarbone again, revelling in her shivers and baited breath.

“And how do I know I won’t get that from you?” Deb trapped her with her legs, enjoying the resolution of their separateness after all these years. 

Lou’s lithe body moved until her waist was nestled between Debbie’s knees, their mouths painfully close. Her lilt swelled with the resonance of her marijuana-worn vocal cords as she met Deb’s eyes with conviction. “Because I’m just as stubborn as you are.”

With the fervour of their kiss, Debbie let out a youthful whimper as Lou hooked an arm underneath the crook of her leg as her hips relaxed, tugging her body towards her own.

“That was cute,” Lou said, lips hovering over the divet of Debbie’s neck, moving down over her sternum, sucking devilishly at her breasts, and over the invisible fuzz of her tummy. “Do that again.”

“Make me,” Debbie breathed, hands like slow, heavy magnets finding contact with Lou’s hair as the blonde lightly brushed her hot mouth over Deb’s core.

Lou smirked, fingers making quick work of her underwear as she moved it to one side with the words, “Make you do what, baby?”

But Lou had waited long enough; the brunette would answer when she could. She coaxed open further the delightfully warm and pink center of Debbie’s core with her tongue, tasting all that was already there and feeling their stomachs tighten simultaneously, gliding her mouth all the way up and circling distantly around the perimeter of her clit. Debbie’s eyes shut involuntarily as she moaned out, her hands forced to grip something a little less explosive than Lou’s hair, for she sensed that the more she pulled, the better Lou would be, and Debbie wasn’t sure her body could handle Lou at her very best just yet.

There was far too much to which she had to warm up, first. But still managed to open her eyes and see her lover as she cried out, “Fuck, make me come.”

Debbie nearly shrieked when Lou’s arm strength kicked into high gear, practically ripping off her underwear in one even, collected motion. Her slickness gave Lou the opportunity to dive right in, teasing her with skill as she massaged her, full lips sucking with a focused intention on her folds, breathing her in and treasuring every ounce of adrenaline and accomplishment that she tasted within her. 

The blonde’s fingernails left red streaks down Deb’s thighs before her hands settled at the meeting of her legs and torso, a frequented place of Lou’s on any woman, but on Debbie, there was no mistaking it as her favourite. 

Goosebumps rushed across Debbie’s skin when Lou’s humming vibrated obscenely against her core, and tears slipped from her eyes with the rush of emotion that came with the stroke of Lou’s tongue. The precious act of someone who knew her better than she knew herself taking everything Debbie had to give in such a short and sudden amount of time. 

She blinked the warmth from her eyes as it spilled, already cold, into her ears. Nothing had ever felt more perfect. More powerful. Her mind always wandered during sex, focused too much on trying to finish, trying to impress and satisfy the other person as soon as possible with her orgasm. Perhaps it was a competitive thing, a streak inherited from her brother. Trying to keep up. But here there was no rush. There was no pressure. Lou _wanted_ her. 

Debbie had never been wanted before. 

Here, her mind didn’t even seem to exist - only her body, her heart, and Lou. 

The woman ate her out with such feverish, focused hunger, growing exponentially by the second as the satisfaction of pleasing her set in with a demanding, rocking passion. Deb breathed exhaled the chills in the kind of manner that settled in after understanding that Lou mouthed her like she knew every trick, every secret, every surprise, and some of her own: things that had been collected from years of stories and laments about mediocre sex. Debbie thought back. They’d always listened when the other spoke, and that was nothing but promising.

Every single sound save for Lou’s tantalizing humming and her own desperate, shallow breaths was quickly shut out and Debbie’s core muscles engaged of their own volition.

The tender burning in her belly became suddenly firm as Lou slipped her middle finger inside her just beneath her perilous mouth. Debbie’s back arched off the bed and Lou immediately reached for her with her free hand. Their fingers entwined sacredly, knuckles turning white.

Lou had always been quiet - her teenage years unseen by Debbie except for that fateful day on the baseball field that each of them had somewhat silently acknowledged upon their reunion, but found herself wondering where Lou’s dirty talk had gone.

Every sex story she’d ever told was heavily weighted in the Australian lilt of her filthy mouth, and for a moment Debbie couldn’t help but notice how oddly quiet the blonde was for this particular oral encounter. The brunette didn’t have long to be curious, for Lou added a second finger slowly to meet the first, and her brow furrowed in religious concentration before her gaze lifted, watching Deb with eyes so ocean blue that Debbie thought she may drown in pleasure. 

Those eyes were hooded, rich with the shadows of invisible clouds and demanding desire and their intention sent shivers up Debbie’s spine. The way they said all things at once.

_You’re mine._

_Mine._

_I’ve got you. I can stop anytime. But I won’t._

_You’re allowed to be powerless._

The brunette watched her right back, propped up on her elbows as she panted, trying to communicate all that she couldn’t say. 

_You’re so hot when you’re right._

Lou wondered what she’d done to deserve such delight from pleasuring her oldest friend, the only woman she’d ever loved, and feasting on her provided an erotically hyperbolic high that she never wanted to end. 

Debbie clenched around her fingers, crying out, “Oh my God, Lou, don’t stop,” and her hand pulsed as it clasped Lou’s. 

Lou squeezed her back, tongue working in a cyclical but focused rhythm and pattern of soft and firmness, slipping downward to take one of Debbie’s folds gently between her teeth, offsetting the grip with her wide, full lips and tugging gently. She repeated the gesture on the other side with a satisfied hum to meet Debbie’s whimpering breaths before diving back in. 

The blonde couldn’t be distracted by the heat between her own legs, for she was in ecstasy alone with her head nearly crushed by Debbie’s thick, finely muscled thighs. Having her fall apart on her watch, completely at the mercy of her tongue. 

Not another moment could pass before Deb had to have her hands in Lou’s hair. She was ready for the best, and Lou took the opportunity to unleash everything she had on her hot, slick core. 

It was an unspoken, poetic language of touch and trust, and a kind of intimacy that neither of them had ever experienced with a partner before. But that wasn’t the kind of thing that they wouldn’t care to admit, especially not to each other. Especially not now. 

“Lou,” Debbie gasped. “Lou, Lou, Lou, oh my God, baby, I’m so close, tell me,” she whined out, cheeks flushed.

Lou’s bed was bringing many new feelings with which she was starting to be okay.

“Do it for me, love,” Lou purred with a smile, lips just shy of her cunt as her breath vibrated against her. “Show me how hard you can come. Show me.”

On command, Debbie sat fully upright, catapulted by the electric tension low in her belly as Lou’s mouth returned to sucking and buzzing around her clit. Her fingers were rapid fast, fucking into her until they bottomed out at her chunky and expensive rings. _How fucking sexy_ it was that she hadn’t taken them off. How _urgently_ she began to eat her out and _eagerly_ she fucked her, like high schoolers living off of the only sexual act they knew, only with the experience and charisma of a six-foot-tall lesbian-drummer-skateboarder-con artist. She’d even picked up the electric guitar a few years after college to exercise the agility of her left hand. For sex, of course. Until she actually started enjoying it for the music, too.

“Good girl,” Lou praised softly when Debbie’s body twitched subtly, her long, thick hair falling in her eyes before she collapsed with a sigh. She smiled as more tears seemed to fall and her entire body sang with a buzzing dry current and the wetness between her legs throbbed. Lou licked the taste obscenely off of her fingers, creating a picture-perfect moment like Maggie Gyllenhaal in her bakery in _Stranger Than Fiction._

Debbie’s mouth watered to taste it, her heartbeat pounding in her forehead as Lou met her salty tear-stained lips with her own familiar flavour. 

Neither of them had ever been kissed with such love, such quiet, thankful passion, until this moment, with their best friend’s embrace. The touch tasted thick and hot of her lover, champagne, and the distant linger of pizza.

Debbie had never liked tasting herself on someone else, but she liked how she tasted on Lou, and detected how safe she was with their bodies together. They only pulled away for a moment to catch their breath, but Deb said, “I can’t stop kissing you.”

“Don’t,” Lou replied, taking Deb’s lower lip between her teeth before swiping her tongue across it. “You taste fucking amazing.”

“Where did you get so good at that?”

“Practicing on the wrong people works wonders.”

It was a painful reality that neither of them were willing to dive into that this moment. 

Debbie swooped into Lou’s neck, pressing the sweetest, tenderest, open-mouthed kisses on her skin and moaning softly as their arms clung to one another. 

They fell into a warm embrace, their bodies entwining on their sides as they shuddered with invisible tears and held onto each other, affirming an entirely new meaning of coexistence. 

Their ears listened to the hum of the pipes in the old warehouse walls, the odd ominous _clank_ and _thud_ inside the hidden machinery. The warm glow from the chandelier was a soft touch, but Lou leaned over Deb’s torso to turn on one of the bedside lamps. 

Debbie kissed her shoulder tenderly as the light clicked on, and Lou ran a hand through her messy locks before meeting her partner’s eyes again.

“Do you still want to know what happens now?”

The brunette smiled, her foot brushing against her lover’s leg. “Only if you had something else in mind.”

Lou ran a ringed hand quite presently over the wave-like curve of Debbie’s body. “Now I take your makeup off.”

Debbie adjusted her head against the pillow, eyes filling with a soft memory not so different from what this one would come to be. Only this time they had the bed to themselves. Their scents mingled on their skin as Deb just nodded, trying to keep calm her cheeks from a bursting smile. “Okay.”

Lou covered her mouth with a tender adolescent kiss before launching herself out of bed and padding dizzily towards the master bathroom. 

Deb starfished on the bed, still not quite used to the glamour of it all; how lavish yet industrial her best friend’s style was, how exquisite she felt getting to utilize such facilities on a regular basis. 

“Gotta pee,” Lou called from the bathroom. 

“That’s a great idea,” Deb replied.

Lou groaned with exhaustion. “I don’t see your ass on the loo.”

Debbie forced herself out of bed and took her turn when Lou was finished.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Lou called as she made her way back to get under the covers. “It’s very tempting.”

“How can I not, when you’ve warmed the seat up for me?”

Lou’s cheeks were sore from no joy she’d ever felt before tonight. And she squealed when Deb suddenly came charging around the corner and jumped on the bed, tackling Lou as she rolled the covers back for her.

“Do you remember baseball?”

“The pastime that very much still exists?”

“ _Our_ baseball.” The brunette squirmed under the duvet and practically moaned. “Fuck you and these sheets.”

“You’re halfway there.”

“Who were you waiting for?”

“When?”

“After the game. Danny was driving me in the Cadillac.”

Lou opened the package of makeup wipes with melodramatic flare and brandished a towelette with the kind of poise that only she could have. “Shitstine.”

“Mmm. God bless Shitstine.”

“How have we never talked about this before?”

Deb shrugged, propping herself up on one elbow as Lou directed her to close her eyes. “Our more formal meeting involved Tammy, and Tammy likes to be involved.”

The blonde went to work on her partner’s eyes, returning the favour after two decades. “But we’ve had so much time without Tammy.”

“It almost doesn’t feel like it was really us.”

“When?”

“At that point in our lives.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Us?”

“Of course not.”

Deb let the silence sit for a few moments while she became present to the feeling of Lou’s fingers carefully working. “Then when were we?”

Lou folded the material over and finished the job. “Right now.”

The brunette opened her clean eyes to Lou beaming at her. She took the package and began to repeat the nurturing gesture on Lou’s face. With the blonde’s eyes now closed, Deb had slightly more confidence to say the words, “We have a lot of catching up to do.”


	23. The One With the Breakfast Potatoes (Or Lack Thereof)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kitchen adventure or two have to happen before brunch with the team happens. Obviously

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning from these gay bitches. THANK YOU FOR STAYING WITH ME! I'm so so excited to bring you these next chapters. I hope you are all surviving and forgiving yourselves for not being able to handle things the way you used to. Our basic human needs are BARELY being met (for example, socializing and human contact is the *second* level of human needs). Be kind to yourselves and others, please <3 And I hope you enjoy this chapter!!

The sun poured through the shimmering stained glass windows that were characteristically more suited to an abandoned church rather than a music venue, but the colours cast upon the pristine duvet and over the inconspicuous lump that was both pairs of legs tangled together. 

Lou tended to be a light sleeper, but this morning seemed to be an entirely different Lou, the strange freshness lingering from last night.

Deb rubbed her eyes, refusing to pinch herself to see if it was real.

The rise and fall of Lou’s breaths and serene sleeping expression was more than enough. Debbie didn’t know how many minutes went by where she just lay awake, watching the blonde in her natural habitat. This privilege she now had, sharing a bed with this mystery she’d been trying to solve for over twenty years. 

The brunette stretched, sighing and deciding to wake Lou in the best way possible - with food.

But as she made to climb out of bed, she was held back by the soft urging of Lou’s hand.

Only a bear-like sound escaped the blonde’s sleeping lips, but it was enough to get Debbie back in a heartbeat. “You rang?”

Lou opened one eye. “You’re not driving off in that Cadillac with your brother again, are you?”

“And leaving you in the dust on the curb?” The brunette kissed her, following her profound longing to do so. “Never again.”

“How was sleep," Lou asked, her eyes closing with a kind of contented smile Debbie had rarely seen.

“Too good. Looks like you’re still sleeping.” She brushed the stray hairs out of Lou’s eyes. 

“Come back in three-to-five business days.”

“If you come downstairs in twenty minutes, I’ll have food for you.”

That got Lou’s head off the pillow, at the very least. “What time is it?”

“We’ve got an hour before company.”

“That’s not enough time.” Lou tried scrambling out of the sheets, but Debbie gently encouraged her to relax. 

“It is enough time. Go back to sleep.” She kissed her forehead and crawled out of the massive bed. Lou relented, propping herself up on one elbow and watched her lover put on the thin cotton/spandex blend bathrobe from La Vie En Rose. Probably the cheapest thing they owned between them.

Lou swallowed at the sight of Debbie’s small, hardened nipples through the criminally thin fabric. Her curves. Her substantiality. Her freckled olive skin and the subtle shadow under her sleepy, sober, sparkling eyes. How beautiful her _natural_ was.

“Write me,” Lou called melodramatically as Debbie headed quickly downstairs, breasts bouncing like a mildly pornographic forest nymph. Lou had never noticed breasts with such sincere focus before. Such profound adoration as the cherry on top of a much deeper emotional attraction. Lou never liked breasts any larger than what she could hold in the palm of her hand, or securely suck at without having to hold them in place. Debbie’s were a perfect fit. Two or three sizes bigger than Lou’s, but still small by misogynistic definition. 

The next twenty minutes were all she needed. 

When she awoke again, the room was thick with the dripping, greasy flavour of hot bacon and eggs, the nostalgic, maternal fluffiness of pancake batter, and the chilled, refreshing sound of expensive protein powder fruit smoothies in the blender.

Debbie had always been an admirable multitasker. Lou sometimes envied it, but devoured it far more. 

Then the turntable downstairs scratched familiarly and the opening plunking piano notes of Donny Hathaway’s rendition of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” filled the ambient space with comfort and consistency. 

Debbie was _really_ good at multitasking. 

Lou hopped out of bed and threw on a clean pair of underwear and one of her wife beater tank tops, a style that Deb had always said accentuated her brilliantly petite breasts. She looked tough, but tender. 

The staircase was cold on her well-circulated, sensitive feet, and she found Deb sure enough in the kitchen, hair tied up on a gloriously thick bun, loosely crimped from sleep, and bustling around her personalized stations with ease and lofty passion. 

Donny Hathaway’s vibrato rippled through the room with a slow, meticulous rhythm and Lou had to be careful not to startle her partner when she spoke.

“Is this breakfast or pre-breakfast?” She asked, adjusting her underwear with a sleepy yawn.

Deb whipped around, her robe now coming loose around her breasts, one leg crossed in front of the other while she wiped the metaphorical sweat from her brow. 

“Whatever you don’t eat we’ll feed to the girls.”

Lou tuned in to realize she’d been wet in a dreamstate since Deb put on that robe in the first place. She glanced quickly at the digital clock on the stove to estimate how much time they may have to fuck in the kitchen. To perhaps invoke some incentive, she hopped on the only clean part of the counter.

Deb’s feet were mesmerizing as they moved swiftly around the kitchen, her robe falling further open as she refused to deal with it. “I still can't figure out your coffee machine so I opted for smoothies instead. Also I heard your bike start creaking in the corner so it might need some attention.”

At this point Lou was almost intentionally trying to run her old bike into the ground, to make the transition to her new purchase feel well-earned. Debbie supported her wholeheartedly. 

She was aiming for a 2016 Triumph Thruxton 1200 R. Magazines were preferred over an Internet seller. "I’ve been avoiding it. And all the bike pictures online are just half naked babes getting their junk all over it so you can’t even see the make and model of the damn thing.”

“Lou Miller, complaining about half naked babes rubbing their junk on bikes.” Debbie smirked and turned the blender on.

Lou’s insides melted, and waited until it was quiet again. When the machine stopped, Deb glanced over her shoulder at her, still grinning. Lou opened her mouth to continue, but Deb pushed the blend button again. Lou rolled her eyes.

They played start-and-stop for several moments before Lou jumped off the counter and turned off the machine once and for all. “You’re fun to play with.”

Debbie’s face brimmed with suppressed laughter and Lou reached to get two glasses out of the cupboard. “What I was trying to say was that it’s different if they’re actually riding it.”

“Oh, I know. You like girls that know how to turn it on and not slide off, right?” The brunette slipped swiftly behind Lou’s slender figure and pinched her ass. A heavy lust grew in Lou’s eyes underneath her overgrown fringe, paired nicely with a shade of pink on her stunning cheekbones.

The brunette turned back to the counter. “This might taste like expired field greens and tap water, but we’ll see.”

Lou closed the gap between them, pressing herself further against her lover as she brushed the hair away from Deb’s neck and trailed featherlight kisses up to her ear. 

Deb’s skin rippled instantly with goosebumps and she leaned back slightly into the embrace. She turned around with Lou still close and passed her one of the full glasses. 

“Taste this first.”

Lou sniffed it instead. “Needs peanut butter.”

“Peanut butter, my ass. It’s perfect.”

“I will do far more than just peanut butter your ass, believe me.”

Debbie took a sip before putting the mug back down on the counter. She then took one of Lou’s hands and brought it up to her mouth. She looked up into Lou’s eyes through her fluttering eyelashes. The blonde’s cheeks were her favourite shade of rose as she took one of Lou’s fingers between her lips. 

The abrupt contrast between ice and heat as Deb closed her mouth around it made the sensation all the more intense for Lou, her hips unconsciously pressing Deb closer to the counter. 

“We have twenty-five minutes before Tammy shows up early,” Debbie said, after slowly taking Lou’s finger out of her mouth. She spread her legs to allow for a more snug fit between their bodies. She heard a deepened groan of approval slip from Lou’s throat. Their mouths teased heavy, bated breaths between them before Debbie practically rasped, “Counter.”

“This is the only reason I lifted a single weight while you were inside.”

“To fuck me in the kitchen?”

“To get you out of the way whenever you were bugging me.”

Debbie giggled as she was hoisted onto the same unoccupied space of the counter. “Am I bugging you now?”

“Not yet.”

Their lips collided with desperate, pulling gravity and Lou’s hands roamed over the fluid curves of her partner.

“God, I fucking love these hips. Your thighs. This body.”

Debbie’s eyes shut tightly, her sense of reality blurring in ecstasy as she processed those precious words. “I kinda wish you would’ve told me that sooner.”

Lou sucked at the tenderest part of Debbie’s neck, muttering, “I’ve been telling you that since college, Ocean, it just never clicked with you until now.”

“Let’s just say I’ve never ‘clicked’ with anyone like I ‘clicked’ with you last night.”

Lou burned with pride, but a shattering humility overshadowed it thinking that she’d never wanted anything more in her entire life. “Let’s hope that wasn’t the champagne and the adrenaline talking. For either of us.”

They both knew Deb’s witty comebacks wanted some kind of traction after a comment like that but Lou’s fingers ghosted over her swollen clit, and Lou’s heart matched it as it burst with pleasure, feeling how the brunette’s folds opened up to reveal a slick, sugary heat as she slid her index and middle digits lightly towards her opening. Her own body responded with passion to the sound of Debbie’s gentle gasp, the vision of her strong, sharp German features tilted back in the low warm light of the kitchen. 

“You know how much you’re dripping for me, don’t you?” Lou asked, her mouth at Debbie’s throat. 

“Yes, baby, I do, it’s all for you - ”

Debbie tilted her hips back against the firmness of Lou’s palm, while the blonde almost accidentally slipped her middle finger deep inside Deb’s warm, tightening walls. Lou watched her with hunger as her chest heaved with her delightful little moans, her mouth making silent movements into words that couldn’t fully be formed, for Lou’s thumb now teased around her clit and her second finger came into play. 

“Fuck, Lou, I’m literally right there.”

The blonde took her cue with the already familiar clenching of Debbie’s cunt. With her free hand she brought their bodies close enough into a slow kiss as she stopped her movements completely. The sound that came out of Debbie’s mouth was as heartbreaking as she imagined it felt. Lou gently caressed the brunette’s pink lips and teased her fingers inside for Deb to helplessly suck while she came down furiously. 

“What the fuck was that?” Debbie panted, her entire body frozen on edge.

“What, you can’t recognize a con unless you’re running it?” Lou kissed her with her crooked little smile and helped her down. “Go upstairs, sweetheart, and put some underwear on. We’ve got company.”

“Oh, I am so mad. I’m so mad at you.”

Lou tossed a grape in the air and caught it in her mouth, kissing Debbie again with its tartness as she answered. “It’ll pass.”

“I’m coming for you later.”

“God, I hope so,” Lou replied with tastefully exaggerated longing. They had to make up for all the feelings they hadn’t been hiding in the last twelve hours. 

Debbie glared at her before storming up the stairs in a frustrated huff.

Lou cleaned the counter thoroughly. Moments later, the buzzer went off and she let Tammy in. 

“Right on time.”

“Affirming. Thank you.” Tammy was fresh faced, her hair neat, wearing a red frilly sweater she’d probably knitted herself on some vacation to tell herself she could be relaxed. “Should I strip down to my undies, too?”

Lou was still only partially dressed. “It’s encouraged.”

Tammy took a seat at the kitchen island as Lou began preparing the first batch of coffee.

A pause. Tammy held her breath, trying to hide her smile.

Lou exhaled, sensing Tammy’s anticipation. “Thanks for the champagne,” she said, handing her a steaming mug of dark roast coffee. Tammy refused to look away. She’d barely even looked at her coffee.

Lou scratched the top of her head lazily, but with a blush and a smile that couldn’t be hidden if she tried. 

Tammy beamed, the proudest she’d ever been, as she finally raised her mug. “Cheers.”

Debbie came down the stairs after they shared a few moments of happy staring and elated coffee sipping. She was dressed in her high waist black pants and billowy white blouse, her hair falling in the usual way that had Lou watching her like a hawk. Her eyes were done softer than the night before, but still bright and sparkling and she carried with her Lou’s sweatpants. 

“Good morning.” Debbie brushed Tammy’s shoulder with her fingers as she passed and rounded the island. “Pants," she said to Lou, dropping the sweats on the barstool.

"Bite me."

Tammy snorted discreetly into her coffee, already knowing Lou’s signature tease. “I can already cut the tension with a butterknife.” 

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to help me,” Lou said, turning to Deb who met her eyes happily, their faces only inches apart. “I’ve forgotten how to dress myself.”

They shared a chaste kiss while intentionally glancing at Tammy who watched them with an amused shake of the head. “I hate you both almost as much as I love you.”

“That bed’s big enough for three, Tam.” Lou stepped into the sweatpants that Debbie held out for her.

“Please, you finally took off more than just each other’s makeup. This coffee is amazing.”

“Alchemy,” Lou said, raising her mug to her lips again. “Australian.”

“Never thought down under would taste so good,” Debbie said in her best Aussie inflection, peeling an orange.

Now it was Lou’s turn to snort into her coffee. 

Tammy allowed her a distraction. “I hadn’t even thought of how long it’s gonna take for you to get used to life again, Deb. You jumped right into the heist, and now you’ve both just done something irreversible.”

Lou’s hand slipped into the soft, dimpled curve of Debbie’s lower back and all three of them seemed to like it there. 

“A few things,” Debbie affirmed.

Their best friend smiled. “Just let it be what it is. Trust yourselves. Let it happen.”

“Can we make breakfast happen?” Lou.

“Done,” the other two women replied.

They helped each other prepare as much hot food as they could manage before the rest of their little family arrived.

Amita breezed through the door with a disoriented Rose in sunglasses on her arm, followed by Constance and Nine Ball only a few cacophonous moments later. Those two, in particular, liked to make an entrance. Constance’s: boisterous and impossible to miss. Nine: understated and powerfully quiet. Her silence often spoke louder than Constance.

There was a serene amount of time where the seven of them enjoyed breakfast, helping each other to make extra of whatever went short, the entire house smelling deliciously of coffee and croissants, bagels and fruit, bacon and eggs.

“How come I don’t see any breakfast potatoes?” Constance asked after thoroughly inspecting the kitchen.

“You mean, like, hash browns?” Amita asked. 

“Nah, like breakfast potatoes. Like that Arielle Vandenburg vine where Matt gives her breakfast potatoes.”

“There is literally every type of breakfast food here, I think you can live without them,” Tammy argued.

“Exactly. Every type. _Except_ breakfast potatoes.”

Debbie had tuned out of the conversation after she’d noticed that Lou had snuck upstairs. 

She handed Constance a coupon voucher for Greek food. “Knock yourself out.”

Constance’s eyes went wide and the lull of the kitchen conversation turned into precious Christmas morning kind of background noise while the turntable worked its Platters’ “Only You” magic and Debbie tiptoed up to the second floor.

She found Lou sitting on the edge of the bathtub close to the tall window, taking somewhat experimental drags of a joint.

Debbie waited in the doorway, watching her in reverie. “You haven’t eaten yet.”

Lou clearly couldn’t be upset. It hadn’t gotten quite as bad as what some would label as a disorder, but when she had brief visits with Deb, it did not go unnoticed that her face was thinner. 

“It’s pretty hard to eat when the person who makes you want to do anything at all gets stripped of her humanity and isn’t around for five years.”

The brunette crossed the fresh, blue-and-silver-tinted room and asked to join her by the window. “May I?”

Lou passed the joint, inviting Deb to sit next to her. They sat in silence for a long, slow minute before Debbie spoke again.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I wanted to eat, I had an appetite, it just didn’t go down that often, is all. You start to get sick of trying after a while.” Another drag. Lou’s voice was quiet and reassuring, seemingly coming to terms with the feeling for both of them. 

Deb paused. “And now?”

“Don’t worry about now, you’ve been home barely a month. I’m gonna take a bit of time to get my stomach back. But a reminder will always be appreciated.”

Deb felt warm. _Always._ It calmed her to know that Lou was open. She lightened up the moment. “Bit of a drama queen, aren’t you, Miller?” Deb poked her leg with her foot.

Lou only gazed at her thoughtfully through her fringe, but her cheeks were pink with brewing laughter. “Takes one to know one, hot shot.” She took the brunette’s foot and rested it in her lap. 

They shared the ebb and flow of their smoke and watched the street roll below them, and Debbie connected with what she supposed was what it felt like to be home. The blonde caught her eye and the corner of her mouth tilted up into a half-smile.

“Hey, come here.”

Debbie leaned towards her partner, responding happily to the index finger curling under her chin as Lou blew a gentle smoke ring, which Deb smoothly inhaled in the wake of a kiss. 

Though its intentions were pure, something about the chemicals between them that they could never understand drove their liplock forward into the type of hungry, concentrated kiss that they could only dream of sharing while Debbie was incarcerated. 

“Can I make up for earlier by taking you out tonight?” Lou asked, gut clenching at the thought of watching Debbie’s breasts bouncing while she straddled her hips, or Deb’s fingers white as she gripped Lou’s thighs and devoured her, or Debbie’s familiar, loving perfume as she sipped a chilled white wine with a delightful little smile in her cheeks, or Debbie reminiscing about life before prison, life with Lou, life with Danny, while they waiting for their dinner at some place expensive. 

Deb had missed the hazy taste of marijuana, and even more so Lou’s lips, even though it had barely been an hour. “It sounds like you’re asking me on a date.” 

Lou affirmed her sweetly. “You’ve always had very good ears.”

“Lou, I really can’t tell if you’re flirting with me or not,” Debbie said coyly, receiving the bud of the joint gingerly between her fingers and taking a small hit.

Lou blew her breath out the window, waving the excessive smoke away from her eyes. “Really? After all this time, I thought this was just how we talked.”

Debbie shrugged, passing the last of it back to her best friend. “We haven’t talked in a while.”

“Your last date got you arrested, I figure it’s about time something new happens to you.”

“Something like you?”

Lou took the last drag and extinguished the leftovers on the edge of the ceramic tub. “If you’ll have me.”

“You know I love you more than anybody in this world, Lou. I’ll always have you.”

Lou’s heart began to bleed.

Debbie realized what she’d said, and berated herself for still keeping such a secret to herself, _still_.

But now that they’d had sex, now that it had finally happened, she couldn’t just blurt out just _what kind of love_ it was without it seeming purely motivated by their shared glorious orgasms and adrenaline rush sugar-coated with fatigue. 

It wasn’t time. Neither of them said anything more, only battled the exhaustion of patience within themselves.

They each wondered how long they’d loved each other in this way, how the sex was the cherry on top, the catalyst for the realization that it really was _that kind of love._

Until now it was a deep-cutting brotherhood and partnership that was every form of already-married couple life, just without the sex. 

Until now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop
> 
> also the breakfast potatoes vine that Constance references is here at 19:04:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onic8K7U_uM&ab_channel=AllOfVines


	24. The One With Karasu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is a very nice place.........and we're eating dinner..................this is a date!"
> 
> "Haha yea - NO" - Enchanted, 2007
> 
> ........Unless........and make it lesbians

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy it feels good to post new chapters. 
> 
> PS: I mainly just transcribe the actual scenes when I'm writing canon narrative, but I thought it was kinda trash that Nine Ball only had one line in this scene and Constance had NONE. So, bc I'm a fcking writer and In This House We Do Not Waste Our Women, I took my creative license and ran with it.

Lou stood in front of her industrial wardrobe in only her underwear, and Debbie hung and straightened their pieces from the Gala the night before. 

“We talked about bringing Daphne in, didn’t we?”

“I have to reach out to her assistant. Burner phone,” Lou replied, shifting through her many marvelous suits. “You can’t be involved at all. Which suit says ‘brunch and I have a dinner date later?”

Debbie smiled to herself at the thought. She turned to join Lou at the wardrobe and pointed at her three-piece in maroon. Lou reached around and gave her ass a squeeze as an affectionate ‘thank you’. 

Debbie watched as she got dressed, and topped it off with two of her watches. “Sexy.”

“Don’t tease me, felon.” Lou winked at her as she tied her necktie loosely in the place of a necklace. She watched Debbie with low-burning eyes as she contacted Daphne’s assistant.

It was a persuasive meeting invitation that even Daphne Kluger couldn’t pass up. 

Debbie and Lou rejoined their family downstairs, scavenging what was left of breakfast.

They didn’t notice the eyes on them as they moved fluidly around each other in the kitchen like clockwork, with the occasional hand on the waist or lingering arm touch. 

“Oh my God, we called it,” Constance whispered to Rose, a forkful of potato paused on its way to her mouth. 

“Oh yes, they seem to be really phoning it in on this whole ‘keeping it a secret’ thing,” Rose replied.

“Was that a pun?”

“I can keep up.”

To the couple’s surprise, there was no harassing beyond the loving and suggestive stares during conversation, and the early afternoon was spent lounging and talking, bonding over their success and taking the time to settle back into reality. 

They got hungry again, so pizza was ordered, and Rose transcended into a food coma involving her sleep mask and a non-reclining chair. 

Lou and Debbie liked the apartment full of sound and talk, and the occasional side-splitting laughter. They wandered to the turntable when the record ended, and Debbie offered Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly”, which Lou happily accepted.

The doors burst open with Daphne’s presence, startling Rose awake.

“You guys are fucked,” she said with conviction and a mouth full of fruity gum. “Nice place,” she added. “Must be a bitch to heat.”

“Excuse me, you are trespassing,” Tammy defended, on her feet and high alert in her long denim skirt. Daphne played dumb for a moment before taking a seat on the couch.

“No, we asked her to come,” Lou explained from across the room.

“You asked her to come? Oh!” Tammy expressed in mock understanding. 

“We realized a few days ago that Ms. Kluger - ”

“Was not a total freaking idiot,” Daphne interjected lazily.

“...Might have gotten a sense of what we were doing.”

“First of all if there’s one thing I know, it’s bad acting,” Daphne began. “And I almost never throw up, even when I’m really wasted. And I never forget a face.”

“Yeah, yeah. So, seems to me, eight shares of a hundred and fifty million is better than seven shares of nothing, right?” 

The women shared uncomfortable looks in silence, but with the kind of understanding that can’t be denied. 

“Chilly,” the movie star said. “‘Hi Daph, welcome to the team, let’s not all high-five at once.’ Plus, I am the one who is saving all of your asses from insurance fraud.”

Tammy’s head turned at attention. “What?”

“Insurance fraud?” Rose rose from her seat in a panic.

“I was gonna get to that.” Debbie said in a low voice. 

“When?” Amita.

“It seems that they’ve assigned an insurance investigator…”

“Who’s about to look up your ass with a flashlight.”

“Who?” Rose asked, her voice getting higher by the second.

“Oh, this little Columbo dude, everything but the trenchcoat, totally on to you.”

“His name is John Fraser,” Debbie explained calmly. 

“You know him?” Nine asked in surprise. 

“Yes, he busted my father twice and my brother once.”

“He’s family,” Lou explained, her heart tripping a wire when Debbie exhaled a soft, knowing laugh. Nothing compared to that feeling. 

“Alright, lest we forget, this entire enterprise was to keep me out of jail,” Rose stated, fully awake now.

“No one’s going to jail,” Lou assured.

“Are you sure?” Tammy.

“We expected this, we prepared for this.”

“Yup,” Nine said from her thoughtful position. “That’s clear.”

“We will not be the prime suspect.”

“Okay, well then, who will be the prime suspect?” Constance broke her silence. 

“Well, there’s a few,” Lou answered her. “We’ve got the security guards, the bus boys, we’ve got the - ”

“The shady guy who put you away,” Tammy realized, eyeing Debbie with what was now very much the kind of understanding she wished she didn’t have. “Wow.”

“The boyfriend,” Daphne said, the word coming off with a suggestive tone.

“Yeah,” Deb responded. “They were gonna be looking for somebody, just had to make sure it wasn’t one of us.”

“It’s nice,” Lou said matter-of-factly.

“Thanks,” Debbie replied, giving her a much deeper thank you underneath it all.

“That is amazing.” Daphne. “The precision, right? It’s always the attention to detail and the little gracenotes that really makes something sing.”

“Why are you doing this?” Tammy had had enough of games. 

“I don’t have that many close female friendships. And book clubs are the worst, so I just thought, you know, this could be something fun to share.”

“You’re becoming a criminal because you’re lonely.” Tammy had always been good at deductive reasoning. 

“Who isn’t sometimes, right?”

Constance raised a valid question to Daphne. “Are you an only child?”

Daphne was embarrassed while Tammy rolled her eyes, sharing a look with Lou for some sense of sanity. Debbie missed her brother greatly, and the feeling of having a sibling. It was an empty space inside her that she imagined was something she wasn’t feeling on her own. 

  
  


______________

  
  


With the afternoon quickly evaporating and the news shared about the extra jewel haul, the team gradually left the loft after their celebration and by the time Tammy got the guts to invite Nine out for drinks, it was nearly dark. 

Debbie Ocean had picked a criminally thin ankle-length gown that was completely backless and had a delicate Angelina Jolie moment reserved for the right light. She threw one of Lou’s blazers on over it to guard from the still not-quite summer weather outside. It smelled like Old Spice and Lou’s kitchen.

_Leave it to Lou to wear a blazer in the kitchen._

The dressing-up had Debbie thinking back to her high school prom. There was a sudden surge of wishing she had known Lou then. How Lou would’ve been able to show her the time of her life rather than the boy who had asked her and who showed up drunk, neglecting to even talk to her all night. And when he did, he was feeling her up and standing far too close in her personal space to possibly be able to get to know the clueless seventeen-year-old girl with braces. 

She liked it when Lou stood closer to her than colleagues might stand. She liked it when she could breathe in Lou’s scent without having to move closer because Lou was already there. She liked that Lou could be in her space but never made it feel like an intrusion.

She called Danny to pick her up early from prom. She wondered about the person Lou likely was in high school, and what it might’ve been like for herself if she’d been more aware of her own sexuality. It was hard to think that Lou ever _wasn’t_ aware of her own sexual preferences. She suddenly had so many questions about this woman, feeling as though she knew nothing and everything about her. Twenty years was a lifetime and no time at all. 

Lou emerged from the bathroom in a traditional tuxedo, buttoning her cufflinks, and her crooked smile flashed at the sight of Deb. “Do I know you?”

Debbie willingly checked her out. “I’d remember those legs.”

She liked the growing shade of pink high in Lou’s cheeks.

  
  


Karasu was a restaurant that was proud of its new look, according to the blonde, and it was the ultimate balance of grit and glam. “And with a ten-foot ceiling, I might even be able to stand up straight,” Lou said. Debbie put her heels on by the door and they lovingly hopped into the familiar Toyota. 

They argued mostly on the drive over about the quickest way to get there, but in turn arrived faster than either of them could have predicted. 

Lou emerged from the car and opened Debbie’s side for her while the brunette removed the blazer. 

“You look terrible,” Lou said as Debbie got out.

“I couldn’t upstage you, could I?”

The door slammed shut practically on its own as Lou followed the warm, freckled bare back of Debbie Ocean as she headed towards the entrance before turning around and holding out her hand for Lou. 

Lou brought her hands out of her pockets to accept. “What, you can’t make an entrance on your own?”

Once they were seated in the intimate corner booth and had settled on enough food for the two of them, they took a long minute to explore one another’s every detail. Lou’s eyeshadow was dark, her earrings slightly larger than usual, and her bowtie couldn’t be crooked if she tried. Her shirt and blazer were crisp and pristine, as though they’d never been worn. 

Two strands of Debbie’s hair were tied back into a half-up half-down style that Lou hadn’t seen since they were in college, and had nearly forgotten existed. The brunette’s lips were smooth and awake, begging to be kissed almost as much as Lou. 

But instead, the blonde asked, “What were you thinking?”

Debbie ran her fingers quickly over the probably soy and definitely expensive centerpiece candle. “Little late to ask me that, now.”

“During Little League. I’m furthering the baseball conversation.”

“Oh, man...” Deb tried to remember what had always been clear as day. “I thought you were tall.”

“Impossible.”

“I was thinking about how much I wanted to see you run. I felt kind of silly, actually.”

“I’ve never had more than three inches on you, but I’ll let you have this.”

“Yes, but you’re sixty percent leg, I’m sixty percent torso.”

Lou nodded in acknowledgement, folding the crease of her napkin. “I can tell you what I was really thinking if you’re not going to.”

“Hit me.”

“I was thinking about how excited I was to play baseball.”

Debbie snorted. 

Lou continued. “To actually play against someone who piqued my interest, someone who was a delight to look at and played the game well. Someone who just...metaphysically looked and felt different from anyone I’d ever met before.”

Debbie felt the recognition and that same warm, chilling rumbling in her gut from that bubblegum summer day. “You were the coolest person on that field. I didn’t even think it was possible. I regret not talking to you.”

“Even dressed like Thora Birch? I didn’t wash my hand for the rest of the day.”

“She was a little young for us, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes, that’s why I settled for you instead.”

Their giggles were as young as their first meeting as Debbie rested her chin on her palm, leaning over the table. “Did you really not recognize me at the party?”

“No, I did, I always thought we just knew it was some divine intervention and we didn’t need to ever speak of it.”

“I wanted to do everything with you. Try everything. See everything. I’d never felt that way about anyone before, really.”

Lou felt a swelling in her chest, expecting her eyes to dart around shyly but instead allowing the warm magnet of her lover’s gaze to lock her in. How she was alright with this much eye contact, she couldn’t be sure. “Well, we made that work, didn’t we?”

The blonde cursed herself for making light of the moment when Debbie was clearly trying to get in touch with something under both of their surfaces. 

Debbie watched her face for several quiet, candlelit moments and Lou for once didn’t mind being surveyed. 

“What happens when two longtime friends have sex after nearly a quarter of a century together? What happens next?”

“Depends,” Lou replied.

“On what?”

“Do they want to keep having sex with each other?” She removed her dinner jacket.

Debbie admired the silk burgundy interior of the custom suit and the crispness of her white dress shirt attracted her eye even more. “Very much.”

“Do _they_ still love each other as deeply as they did as friends and don’t feel any part of their relationship has suffered from this new discovery even though it’s barely been twenty-four hours since they hopped into bed?”

“Yes. If anything it feels like it’s gotten better.”

“Then it’s a conversation that they need to have, not you and me.” With a telling grin, Lou picked up her stout little drink and took its bitter virginity as it met her broad and tender pink lips. Debbie’s jaw was relaxed, but her heart pounded in the thick shell of her torso. Their dinner arrived before either of them could say another word, but all questions had been answered until further notice. 

The arrival of food, however, always seemed to give them something to talk about, so their conversation only really lulled for a moment or two before it changed form. 

“So I think we should talk,” Lou began, to which Debbie responded with an affectionate scoff, paired with a loving eye roll. “But we can either save it for after dinner, or for another twenty years from now. Your choice,” Lou added as casually as she continued to passionately dissect the tonkatsu on her plate. 

“Okay, I’ll go first.” Debbie lusted after the way Lou devoured what was before her, the intent and the focus, the presence and the tenderness with which she always seemed to treat anything given to her, especially to feed herself. She’d always narrowed it down to a youth where Lou bent over backwards for the things she needed to survive. A childhood where she’d gone unseen and unacknowledged in anything other than a negative way. Even if Lou occupied her dinner with a movie or something on TV, Deb recalled how subtle, yet attentive and deliberate Lou was with every bite. 

Much of this attitude translated into Lou’s ritual in the bedroom.

“I want to do everything with you. I don’t think I can put it a better way. I’ve always felt that way, I just always knew there were boundaries. Limits.”

“But now those have been sort of…”

“Crossed. So I want to go with it. Because I want you.”

The eating had stopped on Lou’s part, only for Debbie to pick up where she left off. Now it was Lou’s turn to regard Debbie and all her serenity. It frustrated Lou to see perpetual calmness in other people, but with her oldest friend it was a trademark of safety, of consistency. Of trust. All things she was never afforded before the brunette came into her life. Even when Deb was upset or concerned, or even the slightest bit impatient, it was a gentle rolling boil to the surface, and never spilled over. Unlike Lou, Debbie just never had the energy to get truly angry about anything for more than a few minutes, and they hated arguing with each other. That didn’t always stop it from happening, of course, but at least they had that common thread to acknowledge.

“This is a date, right?”

Debbie glanced down at her plate, finding her next forkful. “That’s how I see it, yes. Is that what you want?”

Lou took her napkin from her lap and gestured for Debbie to lean in before she gently took care of whatever may or may not have actually been on the brunette’s face. “You’ll do.”

“Kiss me.”

It felt as though together their quivering breaths and throbbing hearts would draw the eyes of the whole room to their little corner booth, but in the disappointing act of ending a late-night kiss in the evening they found that they were safe from all looks.

But Debbie’s blood was far from safe as Lou’s long, knobbled, and metallically decorated hand rested firm and dangerously close to the apex that cried out with unfinished business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alexa play corinne bailey rae's green aphrodisiac


	25. The One With the Toothbrush and the T-Shirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night of nostalgia and further developments. Something more than memories slips out in the darkness....(and it's unfortunately not flatulence, either)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad at writing summaries I'm always so tired i'm sorry PLEASE ENJOY THIS CHAPTER I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING IT!! MORE SOON! Stay safe wear ya damn mask PROPERLY and I hope you have a restful December wherever you may be :)

Debbie rocked deep on Lou’s fingers, their breasts flush to one another’s skin like frolicking teenagers on the shallow coral couch. The back of Lou’s leg had hit the clear coffee table when they’d arrived, knocking a pile of books onto the floor in her wake. Their clothes were only half-off and Lou’s available fist was full of the brunette’s thick hair. 

The punishment was as delicious as the reward. Debbie had neglected to tell her partner during dinner that she wore no underwear beneath her dress, and allowed Lou to find that out for herself when she started fingering her under the table. 

They skipped dessert, and the ride home was viscerally restless. 

“God, Lou, you’re perfect,” Debbie cried out, her breasts lightly bouncing as Lou sucked at her favourite spot between them. 

“I love hearing you say that shit to me.” Lou’s tongue swiped flat at Debbie’s wrist, where it rested near her cheek, eliciting a shiver that travelled like wildfire down to her core.

“I’ve been fucking dripping for you all day, baby, please Lou - ” their eyes met with a feverous hunger. “Please. Make me scream.”

“Yeah? You think you’ve earned it?”

“I’ll do anything, please, I’m yours, I’m fucking yours.”

Lou slowed her movements for an uneven count of three before picking up at half the speed, and slowing again. “I tell you when to come. I know you’re so desperate for it.”

Debbie’s entire body shook preemptively and Lou gave her a firm spanking, which was met with a heavenly whine. “Oh, god, I want it so bad, I want you, Lou.”

The brunette buried her fingers in Lou’s hair, finding a place so deep in her eyes that they couldn’t look away from one another as Lou’s fingers continued letting up their teasing. 

“Alright, fine, if you want it so bad, come for me.”

Mild panic set in, creating a fusion with Debbie’s raging ecstasy. “Fuck, Lou….”

“Come on, work for it.”

Lou’s free arm gripped further around her lover’s waist, watching her mouth-watering body shiver and arch and writhe and clench as she worked for her finish. When she felt it nearing, seeing the signs in Debbie’s face and every corner of her muscles, Lou _finally_ increased the speed of her fingers to that of her vibrator from the high school years. 

“Lou….” 

The rest of the sentence was wordless, but louder than ever.

“Alright, pretty girl, you’d better come for me. Show me, Deb. Come.”

They held tightly to one another, for the repercussions of Debbie’s orgasm were enough to knock more than just the books off the table.

The brunette could barely walk, but she rushed Lou upstairs and thanked her with a body-shattering fuck, using only her quick mouth, her genetically nimble hands, and her ear for Lou’s pleasure. 

Their personalities had never been tested so intensely in the bedroom before, but neither could decide who would end the cycle of retaliation, and they didn’t stop until their mouths were raw, their jaws aching and fingers buzzing, orgasms leaving them numb. They treated themselves to their leftovers, watching Judge Judy and tangling themselves in the blankets and in each other.

“So you respond well to ‘pretty girl’, but what would happen if I tried something a little more appropriate like ‘dirty felon’?”

The brunette weighed the options. “I would probably come. Very hard.”

They both yawned.

“I’m interested.” 

“I’m exhausted.”

Debbie had figured out how to turn off the lights using the remote control, and she did so once Lou had fallen asleep. 

She had worried she wouldn’t like the quiet here compared to sharing a cell with five other women, but it had appeared Lou had some sort of soft white-noise generator installed somewhere in the bedroom, on top of the humming of the refrigerator downstairs, and the furnace that worked four times as hard as anything she’d ever had. The frequency of the generator seemed lower than white noise, and Debbie wondered if Lou had gone the extra mile in installing a _brown-noise_ machine. The name certainly didn’t sound as appealing, but Deb hadn’t been this relaxed in a while. 

It was subtle, and it had come on gradually as soon as they crawled into bed. With that, plus the distant wailing sirens and general bustle of the city, she had slept better than she had in years. She was thankful.

  
  


_________________

  
  


_Dating_ had never been a strong suit of either of them. They frequented dinners and lunches and hangover breakfasts and mid-breakfast sex and sex in the jacuzzi and sex on the counters and the couch and on the floor and in the hallway, in the car, under the covers, in the bathrooms at restaurants, every breath of ecstasy and connection making up for the lost time and appreciating every moment they had to physically adore one another. 

Lou had bought her new bike, and brought it home with a pizza one fine evening at the start of the hot city summer days. Debbie was laying low, actually enjoying what was left of her parole and trying to discreetly dig up any details on her brother. 

“I think I’m gonna go.” Lou looked up from her laptop at Debbie who sat at the other end of the couch, rubbing her feet while they watched more Judge Judy.

“Hm?”

“California.” 

“You’re gonna go?”

“I’m gonna do it. Straight across.”

“You’re gonna do it.”

“It’s time.”

“I agree.”

“What do you think?”

“I will miss you,” Debbie affirmed, turning the volume down on the TV and facing her partner. “But I know how long you’ve wanted this and that brings me joy.” She smiled.

“Okay.” Lou smiled back.

“What can I do to help you get ready?”

Lou rubbed her twitching, electric eyes beneath her glasses before she rested them atop her blonde and greying fringe and focused on her partner. “You can reassure me that a month isn’t that long to go without waking up beside you.”

“You’ll have to be a little more explicit if you want me to go with you.”

Lou grinned. “No, I’m whining. I wanted it to be a solo trip and that’s what it will be. I’ll head down through Pennsylvania and across through that nice curvy line right in the middle.”

“Your interpretation of geography sounds so much more fun than what I ever learned.”

“I’ll hold a lecture when I get back. I might even know the proper names by then.”

“When do you think you’ll leave?”

“I pack light, so maybe tomorrow?”

It was a mildly upsetting word, and the thought of Lou not being around so suddenly even more so. But there was a bigger, more satisfying sensation that came with the knowledge that Lou had wanted this for decades, and it could finally happen. Something in Deb’s brow twitched as she leaned forward, closing the laptop lid where it rested on Lou’s thighs, and found the tantalizing spot just shy of her lips as she said, “Then there are so many things we need to do tonight.”

“Remind me to do laundry in the morning,” Lou replied, her head craning upward to meet Debbie’s mouth. 

“Deal,” Debbie confirmed before taking her kiss.

After breathtaking moments of investment, Lou paused. “Can we do bedtime first so whenever we’re done we can just pass out?”

“Brilliant. Last time I thought I wouldn’t get out of bed for a week.”

“ _‘Dentists hate them.’_ ”

They shared a snorting laugh. Lights were turned off one by one and the stairs ascended in a quiet, giddy fashion, as though they risked their parents waking up.

Lou did her bedtime routine efficiently, and was out practically before Deb had even gotten up the stairs. 

Now Debbie brushed her teeth in their dimly lit bathroom, overcast by the streetlights and enriched by the echo of sirens and further distanced car horns. Her eyes became unfocused as she wore down the bristles as she’d always done with every toothbrush she’d ever owned. Danny’d made fun of her for their short lifespan and called her “croco-debbie”, which tended to make her giggle more than embarrass her. When they were both still under the age of ten, she admired him too much to care if he teased. If he even acknowledged her at all, it was an accomplishment. When she got braces in middle school he brought it back, but the repercussions had wildly different results.

Lou watched Deb casually from the next room as she folded the random shirts tossed on the bed, and from the distant expression in her eyes Lou was able to gather some memories of her own.

The t-shirt she’d folded held the kind, soft, dry smell of the laundry detergent she’d been using consistently since she first left home at seventeen, and the kind her family had used since before she was born. It felt like being exhausted and hydrated and fed and curling up in her mother’s arms - perhaps the one and only time she ever had, and perhaps the earliest memory she’d ever recognized. It smelled like her little brothers dogpiling in the bundle of warm flannel sheets fresh from the dryer right as she went to fold it.

She didn’t like to believe how much time had gone by since she’d spoken to her brothers, or since they’d spoken to her. Nothing had happened, they’d each just drifted into success and families and children and jobs and promotions and suburban living. Years ago she would come home at least once a year to check on them, and often brought Debbie to moderate the attention and mediate the opposing forces of stepmother and eldest child. The brothers adored Deb, and she adored them. Playing the eldest was fun for the lastborn. 

It had probably been three years since Lou and her siblings had connected, this time. Before that, maybe five. The good news was, the pattern seemed to be getting shorter. 

Her father was another story entirely. 

Lou put the shirts away after smelling them until their scent was just empty fabric, and made her way into the bathroom, where Debbie was still brushing her teeth. 

“Sure you’re not bleeding yet?”

The brunette started slightly, not having seen her partner approaching behind her in the mirror. She spit her toothpaste into the sink and rinsed her mouth. 

“Just me, sorry.” Lou smiled and slipped her arms around her. Debbie turned in her embrace. 

Lou nuzzled her nose against hers. “We don’t have to have sex tonight.”

Twenty years of understanding went by in utter silence, save for their breaths and the soundscape of their city beyond them, and Debbie just nodded.

Their fingers entwined and they backed up together to shut off the light. As they crawled into bed, Lou clicked the remote to fade them into complete darkness, and they got comfortable in their favoured sleeping positions. A loving kiss goodnight was shared.

“I love you.”

“I know. I love you."

But Debbie couldn’t sleep leaving it at that. “And I’m in love about you.”

The silence felt as long as her time in prison before she felt Lou’s hand on hers, which was surprisingly warm. Lou was always warm. It was Lou.

. 

“I know that too.”

“You do?”

Their vision had adjusted, and Lou’s eyes were shining somehow. She smiled big as Deb waited for her response.

“Deborah, you’ve been completely blind if you think I haven’t loved you for the last twenty years.”

But maybe they were shining from the reflection of her own eyes. “Baby, since I first laid eyes on you.”

“It’s not a competition but I will fight you on this. Don’t con me, Ocean, I know you better than you give me credit for.”

She had forgotten how Lou’s gaze, even in darkness, could make her feel like both the most sinful of whores and the purest of virgin deities. The smartest of philosophers and the goofiest of fools. 

“I had the same amount of time to think as you did when you went downtown.”

“You’re thinking all the time.”

“Only when I want to.”

This Lou she was sharing a bed with was all giggly and smiley and it was a side of her Debbie couldn’t have loved more.

The past had just been clinging to her heels and she had been enjoying its company this whole time. 

“I don’t know why we’ve never had the balls to tell each other.”

“I figured since you had enough free time you’d be able to put two and two together, because you’ve definitely got massive balls. But I've got the better poker face, so there’s that.”

Deb had often been credited for her steely willpower, but when it came to emotions, she envied Lou for being so calm. Always.

Lou continued. “Tell me why you finally told me.”

She knew. She had known all along. “It’s the way you look at me. The way you touch me, talk to me. The way I feel when I see you, think about you. And now the way we are physically. The way it’s already been more than just ‘fucking’. I think we’re a part of each other. I guess I just couldn’t keep something that special to myself anymore.”

Lou had been nodding happily, acknowledging and agreeing with everything that came out of Debbie’s mouth. “Thank you for sharing.”

Debbie laughed softly. “Ditto.”

“I haven’t heard anyone say ‘ditto’ since I wore low-rise jeans.”

“I bet we would’ve hit it off at least in the fashion department if we’d gone to the same high school.”

Lou shook her head. “Nah, it would’ve been weird. I was weird in high school. I was scrawny and tall and I smelled like my dad’s liquor.”

“Everyone was weird in high school, and you couldn’t be weirder than you are now. Now you’re even taller and smell like your own liquor and you have your own motorcycle and a girlfriend.”

Neither of them had smiled so much in one night. Lou replied facetiously, “Thanks, honey.”

Debbie assured her, “I think ‘dirty felon’ will do just fine.”


	26. The One With California

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou takes a long awaited trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my heroes. I am deeply sorry for how long it has taken me to update; I know how much updates mean, and I've been there. It is NOT going to become a habit. I've had a couple very close losses in the past month, covid aside. This chapter has gotten me back on my feet, for I've just been trying to write filler until I can get to the original scheduled chapters coming up. 
> 
> You are AWESOME. Please remember to be kind to yourselves and others. This is STILL survival mode.

Lou left that early June morning on her motorcycle, sharing a passionate goodbye kiss with Debbie and an even sweeter set of _I love you_ s as she sped off out of the state. Debbie headed out to visit her brother’s “grave”, still undecided as to whether or not he was actually dead. Oceans didn’t cope well with grief. Perhaps grief was a coping mechanism for other stuff their parents had buried deep inside their children like the world’s most toxic time capsules: impossible to reach and oozing out more acid every day. 

Debbie took the long way home, on a slow walk, and imagined where Lou could be.

  
  


_____

  
  


The blonde’s motorcycle ripped down the highway, thankfully with her on it. The first hour of her trip seemed to have been spent smiling, positively beaming at the feeling she’d been longing for since her youth. Something that running jobs or watering down alcohol or moving away from home had ever done. It was similar to the infinite love she had for her best friend, but this was far more personal. This was all Lou. 

She stopped at diners, gas stations, tourist spots along the way at first, until she began to yawn as dusk settled in over the landscape. She pulled into her planned motel and ordered a pizza for herself. 

Once she was settled, she called Deb. “I’m still alive.”

“ _Catch any flies?_ ”

“Both my lungs are full.”

“ _I love you._ ”

Lou smiled softly, baring her teeth to no one but her ceiling. “I love you, too.”

“ _What are you going to do once you get there?_ ”

The blonde let out an exhausted scoff. “Turn around and come back, I suppose.”

Debbie laughed softly. “ _What are you looking forward to the most?_ ”

“Just finally _doing_ it.”

“ _I’m so excited for you, baby. You’ve wanted this for a long time._ ”

“I have. Thank you. I could’ve done it without you, obviously, but the little nudge in the right direction didn’t hurt.”

“ _It never does._ ”

“What did you get up to today? No good, I hope.”

“ _Oh, you know, I went to see my very hypothetically dead brother and shared a martini with his tombstone._ ”

“What was that like?”

Debbie sighed. “ _I just told him how much he would’ve loved the job. How much I missed him, how much of a dick he is, how much to not blow shooting craps at the casino in hell._ ”

“Those poor bastards don’t stand a chance against him.”

The brunette’s voice got quiet. “ _You don’t think he’s really gone, do you?_ ”

It was the sort of question where Lou knew she already knew the answer, and as usual hadn’t quite reckoned with the possibility of grief.

“That’s not for me to decide, love.”

“ _I’m not asking for you to decide anything, I just want to know what you think._ ”

Lou stayed respectfully silent for a few moments, but not so long that Deb would worry they’d been disconnected. “Danny Ocean wouldn’t go without a show. It sounds like one big con, to me.” When Debbie didn’t respond, Lou continued, “He knew you weren’t getting out any time soon, and it probably felt disrespectful to continue gallivanting about on his shit when you were incapacitated. Or incarcerated. Whichever suits you.”

She heard her lover sigh from New York. “ _You’re my hero, Miller._ ”

“That’s too much credit.”

“ _Have either of your brothers reached out to you?_ ”

“No, why?”

“ _Just out of curiousity. On the subject of brothers._ ”

Now it was Lou’s turn to sigh, further stretching out on the squeaky motel bed. “I suppose only on our birthdays. But even then we’ve never really taken the time to call.”

“ _Do you think you’d be happy to see them again?_ ”

“As happy as you’d be to see Danny, I guess. But maybe twice as much, because there’s two of them. I only hope they’d be happy to see me, too.”

“ _I see no reason why they wouldn’t be. You practically raised them._ ”

“They might resent me for that.”

“ _Yeah, I understand that concern. I resented Danny for a while. I think past a certain age, that changes._ ”

“With a good amount of therapy.”

“ _Just enough._ ”

They’d each gone to bountiful therapy sessions over the years, as a collective half-joke with Tammy, until they each realized how desperately they needed the release. How much baggage was _begging_ to be unpacked, even more so than the lesbian oedipal complex.

Lou had made it to Ohio and was planning on powering through to Indiana the next day, but Deb worried about her driving too fast.

The blonde told her, “I kinda wish you could just be here with me to slow me down. Hang onto me.”

“ _Make out in gas station bathrooms on the way?_ ”

“Talk about orgasms in diners?”

“Have _orgasms in diners_.”

“Take a turn driving.”

“ _Absolutely not. I can’t have your fate in my hands._ ”

“My fate’s been in your hands longer than either of us would care to admit.”

“ _I love you, baby._ ”

“I love you, too. Sleep well.” 

____________

  
  


Over the next week, they challenged one another to only call every two days, but it was a wild goose chase on the first night as they both tried calling one another in admittance of giving up. 

The states were getting warmer, and Lou enjoyed sitting on her ass for hours as long as she was going somewhere.

“I get up to stretch when I can, then I walk into the bars looking like I just got off my horse.”

“ _Should I send you a pair of assless chaps?_ ” Debbie asked.

“Only if they’re cow print.”

“ _They’ll be waiting for you._ ”

  
  


There was a moment between states.

“ _Are you happy?_ ” Debbie continued, sounded like she was smiling.

“I am. But I’m coming back, I promise.”

“ _I hope you didn’t take me saying ‘I love you’ as a means to get you to stay._ ”

“Of course not. I think the tension would’ve been unbearable for the next month if you hadn’t said it.”

“ _I’m glad I did. It’s been my best kept secret since the tenth grade_.”

Lou studied the stains in the ceiling. “If I could’ve kissed you in the middle of that baseball field….”

Debbie wondered what Lou was seeing. “ _Would we have run away together on your motorcycle to California?_ ”

Lou replied, “More like on my skateboard to Blockbuster Video.”

Debbie laughed. “ _Only in assless chaps._ ”

Lou warmed at the sound. “God, I can feel the yeast infection. Go to sleep. I love you.”

“ _I love you baby, sleep well. Be safe tomorrow, please. Signal when passing_.”

“And all that jazz.”

They said goodnight and Lou passed out, a long, dreamless, weightless sleep to follow. 

___________

  
  


Lou passed through several states in only a few days, frequenting obscure gay bars in the middle of nowhere and riding the high of politely saying ‘sorry, darling’ to the fresh-faced queers discreetly looking for her to plow them into their mattresses for one night. She was once that person. Now her entirely leather ensemble and beyond six-foot height certainly didn’t do much to make her blend in, and she was often targeted as the most eligible bachelor in the house. 

“ _You’re a regular Jodie Foster,_ ” Debbie said with a sneaky grin when they video-called a few nights later. 

“I will be, if I keep getting hit on by Kristen Stewarts. Just as breathtaking as Foster, just a little too much oedipal subtext, there.”

“ _Well, she has reached peak lesbian form, I guess._ ”

“I truly believe Queer people don’t reach peak form until their forties and beyond. She’s well on her way, though.”

Debbie rubbed her eyes, her cheeks stuttering in a giggle. “ _That subtext is begging to be unpacked. I’ll write a dissertation._ ”

“So much of the gay experience is made up of oedipal subtext. I expect a rough draft by the weekend.”

Debbie sighed pleasantly. “ _I should’ve proposed to you for real at Veselka._ ”

“Why, so I wouldn’t seem so available?”

“ _No, just for us._ ”

Lou’s stomach knotted in a sugary way. “One day you might actually propose to me and I won’t be able to tell if you’re taking the piss or not.”

“ _I’m working on my clarity._ ”

“Sleep on it. I love you.”

“ _Goodnight baby, I love you back_.”

  
  


____________

  
  
  


The blonde had escaped New York, crossed through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and had days to go across Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, before she came to a halt in California in less than a week.

As the engine of her bike began to cool and she leaned back in her seat to get a better view of what she couldn’t believe she was finally seeing. It was a view she wouldn’t have been able to prepare herself for no matter how many years had gone by with the idea in her heart. 

She fuelled up the engine at a rustic little roadside gas station, a genuine, teenage smile glued onto her face as she thought back to when she didn’t believe she’d ever truly get out of New York. Her own criticized laziness had been internalized from authority figures and mentors alike, offered no sense of childhood lasting longer than the age of six, yanked out of innocence and play to be a live-in caregiver to her baby brother, given that her parents couldn’t seem to handle the more than one kid for which they’d so willingly bargained. From an age too young she could no longer call anything her own, nothing bestowed upon her by her biological guardians, and had no choice but to very quickly take matters into her own hands. In this case, the well-measured, seemingly harmless crime. 

By the time of her mother’s death it was like clockwork numbness, and not a day went by when Lou didn’t imagine in detail how she would escape the inner cogs and dials of her stale little family life, which turned into the same familiar grid of a demanding city. 

The only thing that had suddenly made it beautiful was Debbie. 

And now Lou was here, her engine revving as she drove along the curve of the Western coastline, breathing in the freshest air she’d ever accepted into her lungs. 

This didn’t belong to her parents, or her brothers, or the only woman she’d ever loved. 

This, alone in the sun with only the engine sound, was hers.


	27. The One With the Shower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tammy and Debbie have a night out at Lou's bar, and run into an acquaintance with whom they share a common factor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! School is hard. Thank you for your patience and reading this far!! So much good stuff coming soon!

Lou stayed out on the tourist viewpoint until the sun was sucked back behind the ocean like a raw egg yolk slowly slipping through a crack in the shell. 

She sat on the railing, the bike in her peripherals, her thick, cold New York skin adjusting to the unbreeched attention of the sole source of hot, natural light as it embraced her. The strangers that joined her in waves were friendly and kind, full of the same sort of lofty warmth that Lou was beginning to taste. Lou liked the company of this sort. Strangers in New York were often competitors, always rushing, always talking or deep in thought, always going somewhere. These people were just floating, letting the tide shift them. Never once stepping outside their own present moment except without an internally calculated plan. A gentle smirk on their face like nothing had ever upset them. The knowledge that they had a place, that they knew what they wanted and knew what they were good at. 

It was now dawning on Lou why perhaps she had always been so radiantly in love with Debbie Ocean, and never another soul in the Eastern city. 

When the light began to fade and the cooler air set in, Lou was the only one left. She smiled to herself and geared up with her jacket and helmet once again. 

There was a little diner off the highway that she decided to visit, and enjoyed her table for one in the corner, overlooking the moon coming up over the Pacific. She hadn’t spoken to Debbie since that morning, when she’d received a loving text reminder to be safe.

Admittedly, Lou knew how much bikes stressed Debbie out given the higher accident and fatality rate, and Lou understood, but she could never get tired of getting her little messages. 

After she’d ordered, she sent her lover another note. 

**Lou:** You still up?

It was only eight thirty in California, and therefore close to midnight for Deborah. The response was almost immediate. 

**Deb:** You’d better be alive and know who I am.

**Lou:** I check the boxes. Want to hear your dinky voice.

  
  


The blonde answered her call a moment later, and Debbie asked, “You remember when we watched that one season of _Girls_ back when it first came out?”

It was one of the only shows they’d managed to watch together before the rough patch and the Claude Becker, but the memories were fond nonetheless.

Lou answered with a smile on her face. “The only likeable characters were Adam, Ray, and Elijah, and it feels like that says a lot about the kind of girls they actually were. That’s coming from a radical intersectional feminist.”

“I wonder if they’d called it _Boys,_ would the girls have been more interesting? Anyway, I figured out the girls work perfectly as a band - by personality and attitude, as well as dynamic and audience reception, Hannah is lead singer, Marnie is guitarist, Jessa is a _textbook_ drummer, and Shosanna is one hundred percent the bass player. Lead singer and guitarist are always their own little duo and the most talked about, and usually have beef with each other outside of band beef. Drummer is a lone wolf and a rebel who tends to be blonde or have the shaggiest hair, and is usually British. Shoshanna is criminally underappreciated and taken for granted in the group, even though she carries the entire foursome. Boom. Tragedy.”

Lou could’ve listened to her go on for hours. “Are you reading this off of the PowerPoint you made to illustrate it?”

A moment. “Google Slides.”

The blonde smiled to herself. “Is this what happens when people leave you alone for long periods of time?”

“The less productive side of it, yeah.”

“It does check out; I watched the other five seasons without you.”

Debbie gasped on the other end. “Lou! You didn’t.”

“You never asked me to wait for you, and I didn’t owe you shit. By the end of it, I was rooting for Adam, as I think a lot of people were. Plus they all sleep with the same people, and the ending is rather bittersweet.”

“Was there any gay shit after all?”

“The gayest part was Jessa and Marnie kissing in front of Jessa’s future ex-husband, and when he gets weird about it she tells him she’s going to eat Marnie’s cunt on the sidewalk.”

“Does she?”

“Of fucking course not. It’s for serial straight people.”

“Fucking Lena Dunham. Where are you now? Did you see the ocean?”

“I saw the ocean, she looked just like you.”

“That makes me tingly. Have you made any new friends on the way?”

“Just waved to lots of hippies and strangers who drink kombucha like it’s water and lather themselves in coconut oil sunscreen.”

“I hope you’ll bring some home; that sounds pretty appealing now.”

“I want to take you to one of these bars with me someday.”

“You want me to come with you?”

“I do. I want to eat at this little diner with you and get hangover food and go swimming and get covered in the sun and sand and lick each other and slow down.”

“You make licking each other sound like a recreational drug. And slowing down.”

“Licking people is kind of what got me through my twenties. And my thirties. The slowing down starts now.” Lou’s food arrived, and she thanked the server with a friendly expression. “Tell me everything you did today.”

The story was short, but it was enough for Lou to get a head start on her dinner and enjoy Debbie’s company.

“Remember when you told me about the job and I said I wasn’t your partner ?” Lou asked during a lull.

“‘Yet.’”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Debbie asked, “Can I get that in writing?”

“I’ve got it on a napkin right here. Should I mail it?”

“Hand-delivered, please.”

They stayed on the phone until Lou left the diner, and said a soft goodnight before she started the motorcycle engine. 

The drive was warm and fresh, rich with its mothering breeze, and Lou’s hotel California sleep was the best of all the states. 

  
  


___________________

  
  
  


Debbie enjoyed taking matters into her own hands, especially when it came down to her own time and energy. Being alone at Lou’s place had been refreshing, enjoying the company of some of the team as they visited. But tonight she’d invited Tammy out for drinks.

The brunette and the natural redhead stepped out of a taxi in front of the infamous warehouse bar that screamed Lou’s name in neon lights almost as loudly as Debbie did in the bedroom.

This entrance was more luxurious, with a bouncer even taller than Lou - which was a strange picture - and an even sharper jawline. “I like your jawline,” Debbie commented. In the vibrant purple light of the stairwell everything appeared muddy, except for that jawline. 

“Thanks. I cut it myself.” The tall individual winked at the two of them. “ID, please.”

“I think I just got younger when you said that,” Tammy deadpanned. They handed over their cards. Debbie used her real one, for once.

After a subtle glance back and forth between the ID photo and the two ladies’ faces shaded by purple, the bouncer handed them back and allowed them to descend the staircase into the tasteful throbbing music that sounded the way Lou’s kisses felt. A sentiment they could both share, even after twenty years.

Tammy had been ecstatic to visit the place, but found it difficult to arrange a night off from her kids without several days of planning. On the occasional afternoon, she brought her daughter and son into the city and let them roam around Lou’s loft for a while. Debbie enjoyed the company and the presence of little people’s imaginations. 

But tonight was theirs. 

They’d barely set foot on the main floor when a short server with a tray full of drinks came gliding around the corner. The stairs were open with only a railing separating them from the rest of the room, but both parties seemed to have turned her heads for a split second too long. 

The tray collided with Debbie in a crash, soaking her black button-up shirt and she felt the alcohol seeping through her bra from the opening just at her sternum. The three of them were startled from the impact, the smaller woman nearly in tears in her panicked state.

“Oh, my God I’m _so_ sorry,” she fussed as a few other servers rushed over to help her. She sort of froze when Debbie and Tammy instinctively dropped to the floor to do what they could with the broken glass and the mess of sugary and bitter drinks. “I should’ve seen you coming, I wasn’t paying attention. Someone was coming out of the elevator and it startled me. I’m really so sorry.”

“Stop, it happens,” Debbie reassured her with a smile. She swore she recognized her but it was hard to tell in the changing lights and the smell of alcohol filling every sense she had. “Are you okay?”

The girl laughed meekly as one of the other servers swiftly offered to take the platter of broken glass away. “That was the first time since I started five years ago that I dropped a tray, so I’ll be thinking about this for a while. Thankfully the boss is out of town.”

“You can get away with anything,” Debbie acknowledged as the three of them helped each other to their feet again. She liked the way it sounded when people talked about Lou as _the boss._

“She’s sleeping with the owner,” Tammy declared. “Your job is safe.”

The girl took a closer look at Debbie. “Oh, it’s you!”

Debbie emphasized, “Your job is safe because you’re good at it. One dropped tray doesn’t erase five years of hard work.”

Someone appeared from the ether. “April, your shift ended twenty minutes ago, let me take care of this.”

April protested but the more insistent of the two was also the one with the mop. After a moment she agreed, and looked back at Debbie and Tammy.

“You look like you could use a drink,” Debbie said.

____________

The three women sat in a booth on the more elevated part of the club where people could party without so much of the noise from the dance floor. Debbie’s shirt was damp, but they laughed about it, and she’d very quickly forgotten about that soaked fabric so she could put her mind on the company, instead. 

Another young server swiftly slipped over to their table and greeted them with a passionate zeal and genuine conviction. Tammy was already delighted, settling into the comfortable leather booth as she thought up what kind of ‘drunk’ she wanted to get tonight. They ordered their drinks and instantly bonded over the one thing they seemed to all have in common.

“It’s almost like she skipped the part of a person’s life where they’re bad in bed,” Tammy said, already tipsy on her first vodka cranberry. It hadn’t even touched the table’s surface, going straight from the server into Tammy’s anticipatory hands.

“No way. She’s just always been that good?” April was wide-eyed and enjoyed the stories of the two older women. 

“Oh, unfairly so,” Debbie affirmed. “I still don’t think I’ve reached her level.”

“Did you ever have a phase like that?” April asked Tammy. 

“Bold of you to call it a ‘phase’,” she cracked, and the three of them laughed freely.

Their drinks arrived and Debbie asked April, “This is going to sound like a trick question: do you like working here?” 

April gushed. “Oh, yeah. I want to buy this place from Lou someday. I’m up for the floor management promotion, and she’s letting me feel it out while she’s gone. Working my way back up into the office.”

“Attagirl,” the brunette high fived her. “She needs some competition.”

“Does the floor manager also serve?”

“No, no. I oversee everything involving the main floor - tonight I just happened to grab a tray to help somebody out. I love it, though. It feels good to have multiple arms, so to speak. And I get to wear blazers.” She showed off the sleek velvet of her business jacket that could tell anyone she meant business from a mile away. 

“It’s so great that you want to buy this place,” Debbie praised. “You already seem to be killing the game.”

April accepted the compliment with an exaggerated flick of her hair. “Just a self-made lady in the making.”

“Cheers,” Debbie said gleefully.

“I am getting _drunk_ to that,” Tammy replied. They clinked glasses and enjoyed the rest of the evening dancing and trying to set April up with the other server who had offered to finish the mopping for her. It was a near success.

Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” and Miki Matsubara’s “Mayonaka No Door/Stay With Me” both breezed through the monstrous speakers in line with the throwbacks, and had three of them screaming and sweating as though they’d been friends for decades. Debbie and Tammy could remember when those songs played regularly on the radio, and were transported back to the first days of their friendship.

Later, when ABBA’s “Why Did It Have To Be Me” gleefully burst into the room, Tammy screamed at the top of her lungs, “I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE PLAYING THE MOVIE VERSION!”

April laughed, her hair a mess from dancing, and she shouted in Tammy’s ear. “All _Mamma Mia_ canon is gay culture in a nutshell.”

By the end of the evening - which for their collective energy balance was only shortly after midnight - they hopped in a cab together and dropped April off at her apartment with nearly drunk goodbyes and thank yous and love yous. Tammy and Debbie crashed the warehouse shortly after, and Debbie checked her phone.

**Lou:** I hope you’re having lots of fun tonight. :) If you’re gonna show your tits to anybody, I can’t wait to hear all about it so I can pretend it was me. Love you. 

Debbie smiled, wishing she could be sleeping naked with Lou right about now.

“Debbieeeeeeeeee,” Tammy whined from the bathroom, urinating like a horse with the door open and her head in her lap. “I hunger.”

The brunette snorted, stripping her sodden shirt and boots before heading upstairs to change. “There’s leftovers in the fridge, but you’ll probably still be on the toilet when I come back down.” 

Sure enough, Tammy had fallen asleep, still urinating, when Debbie returned in her pajamas. 

“Okay, Tim-Tam. Past your bedtime.”

Tammy startled awake. “Are we eating?”

“Can you wipe yourself, first?”

“Yes. I’m an adult.”

“Well, you’d be surprised how many adults actually can’t.”

“You’re right, you’re right, that’s _inconsinerate_.”

“‘Inconsiderate’.”

“Well, don’t rub it in.”

Debbie helped her childhood friend to the best of her ability, and the two of them ate leftovers in a hazy, exhausted focus that only came when food had to be devoured for sustenance. She sent Lou a message back.

**Debbie:** Tammy’s really drunk. We hung out with April. We love her. My tiddies are waiting for your sexy mouth. Please drive safe. Avoid fisticuffs. I hope you sleep well. I love you. 

The main floor lights went off one by one and Debbie helped Tammy up the stairs, where she had to practically keep her upright so she could get comfortably undressed. 

“Can I shower?” Tammy asked sleepily, exploring the dryness in her mouth.

“That’s a great idea. Have some water first.”

Tammy chugged the glass of cold water handed to her before Debbie gave her a towel and began running the shower for her. 

Twenty minutes later, when Deb lay on top of the covers searching for photos she had of her and Lou, but very quickly realizing the five year gap in her SIM card data was almost too painful to acknowledge. She imagined Lou’s was no better. At least Lou had been able to fill those five years with beautiful things to make it seem less like time didn’t exist. 

“Deb?” Tammy called from the bathroom, sounding more sober now. “Can you come here?”

The brunette hopped out of bed and went into the next room, where she found Tammy sitting on the floor of the shower under a very gentle stream of water. She hoped it was warm. “Are you okay, Tam?”

The redhead stared into the trickling space of the wall beside her, and her profile was all that Deb could see. A moment. 

“Debbie, I have something very important to tell you.”

Debbie sat down at the dry end of the shower, framed by transparent walls. “Okay, I’m here.”

Her longtime friend’s gaze didn’t move as she swallowed very slowly. “I don’t think I like sex.”

It was quiet between them as it dawned on Debbie what her friend might have been feeling.

“Is this a new discovery that you’re sharing with me, or have you known this for a while?”

“Well I’ve known I’ve been waiting for something to click for years but saying those words is relatively new.”

“Can I come in there with you or do you want to come out?”

In the place of words, Tammy opened the shower door, and Debbie crawled in beside her, pleased when the stream of water was warm. “I don’t know what to do,” Tammy said, now finally looking her old friend in the eyes.

Debbie put a hand on her bare knee. “Do you know what I can do?”

“I don’t really know. I guess maybe ask me a question or two to prompt some deeper thoughts.”

“Have you talked to Paul about it?”

“I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”

“Why don’t you just tell him what you told me?”

“He wouldn’t understand. He’d get confused, and probably angry. Brush it off.”

“Did something happen?”

“No, he’s been very good to me. Which makes it hard to feel like I have a right to be dissatisfied with anything else.”

“You do. If you’re unhappy you’re allowed to do something about it. Especially if you’ve tried to tell him and he doesn’t acknowledge the validity of your feelings. How did you feel with Nine Ball?”

“I’m _so_ attracted to Nine. I am. But we just had drinks together. I don’t even want to think about leaving Paul and I don’t want to jump into holding Nine back from something she may never get with me.”

“Those are some big thoughts. What made it click for you, finally?”

Tammy’s naked body was growing pruny, but she played with the water on her fingers. “I just don’t think about it at all anymore, I get really tense if he even talks about it. And I don’t fantasize about Nine Ball that way, or anyone. With Nine, I just want to be with her, show her how special she is, be special for her, but I’ve just felt nothing for the past…I don’t know…maybe I’ve never felt anything.”

“How did you feel when the three of us were together?”

“Oh, that was just pure fun, and emotionally it felt really satisfying to be a part of your relationship for a night. I’d always been so proud I brought you together, and I was always so enamoured by how sexual you were. I kind of got that confused with just wanting to be like you both. And I really can squirt.”

They shared a sort of unexpected laugh.

“Since then, I guess, I have been pretending to like it. Like I’ve been pretending to want it. Thinking maybe I just haven’t had good sex yet. But I’m not _bothered_ by that. I actually feel sort of free realizing that I don’t have to. It’s a weird kind of different I never thought could exist. Does that make sense?”

Debbie adjusted her wet t-shirt against her breasts. “We were teenagers at a very different time. I can’t even really speak to it, because I’ve been in the dark for the past five years, but it seems people are a lot more okay with ‘different’.”

Tammy sniffled and rested her head on Debbie’s shoulder. “Paul sometimes makes jokes about me being ‘broken’.” The natural redhead laughed, spitting droplets of water from her lips.

“Listen to me.” Debbie shifted to look her straight on, eyes fixed. “As your lifelong friend, I have to tell you that’s a real douche move and I hope that someday you’ll realize that you are allowed to move on from people who don’t respect you. Gosh, I don’t know much about the world right now, but the one thing I know for certain is that you, Tammy, are the farthest thing from broken.” She held her friend's knee so firmly her knuckles turned white. "People can break, people can fall apart, but what makes you who you are will never be the reason why."

With a splashing of warm water from where her hand slipped through the stream, Tammy’s face contracted in open-eyed tears before collapsing into Debbie’s chest, and the brunette choked up as she held her, saying nothing but listening to the heartbroken release of her dear friend’s burden.

She only hoped, with time and support, the former weight of it would become as liberating as Tammy had described. 

By two o’clock, their teeth were clean and Tammy was fast asleep. Debbie had braided their wet hair and tucked her friend into bed beside her. There was no text back from Lou, but it was late in California too. And it was strangely nice for Deb to have a moment in the dark by herself, quiet, with no pull of another person’s attention or anybody else’s thoughts but her own. 


	28. The One With the Drag Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou has a dreamlike experience in Los Angeles that leads to self-reflection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm emotional, and gay. I hope you are okay with this chapter, and would love to hear your feedback <3 I need some good vibes right now. Thank you for waiting. And reading. I love you.

Lou intentionally wasn’t touching herself on this trip. 

But that proved itself to be a challenge bigger than expected when she read Debbie’s text implying anything involving her tits and Lou’s mouth. But Lou was strong, and she liked a challenge. 

It was still early in the West, so Lou decided to go a little further and get to LA for the night. 

By the time the partying hours had begun, she’d made it to the first queer bar she’d located on her phone, and pulled up to the curb, removing her helmet just in time to catch the eye of a young couple heading into the building. They were tall, like she and Debbie, but with a glorious androgyny that she didn’t realize she’d been missing from the New York scene. The motels at which she’d been stopping along the way were horribly bland, and it had worn off on her uncomfortably. Her trip had been like travelling between two colourful bookends into a story that was dull and not at all as exciting as the back and the front of the proverbial book, but she’d made it to the other side, and her heart pounded in her ears . 

The couple smiled at her, and she smiled back. But instead of following them into the bar, she just sat on her bike and listened to the banter of the drag performers that took shifts smoking outside and the younger queers who bummed cigarettes off of them. It was the kind of scene she wished she’d known more about at an earlier age. 

“You’re not from around here, blondie.”

Though those words often had negative connotations, the way they were delivered had Lou feeling welcomed. Included.

She just blew a pink bubble that matched the blush in her cheeks. “New York.”

“That doesn’t sound like New York.”

“Parents are Australian.”

“Get out!” The shorter one marvelled. 

“I did.”

“Daddy issues?” They asked.

“Mommy issues?” The taller one added with the arch of a sharply defined, glittering brow. 

“Yes,” Lou replied genuinely.

“You cuffed?”

Lou tapped her boots together happily. “The fuzzy leopard kind. Are the facilities presentable in there?”

“Sure, lead the way.”

Lou packed away her helmet with the spare, and her tiny little bag of luggage, loading her jacket with her keys and phone, smoothing her hair down before unintentionally leading a small group of attractive performers into the building with her. She felt wildly underdressed. 

The one that had a few inches on her bent down and commented, “Bathroom’s at the back; but stick around for a bit, will you?”

Lou nodded, face burning up already from the adrenaline and the invigourating unfamiliarity of another club. Her senses took in elements of the scene that might have been missing from her own space, but for the most part they were only embellishments. She was proud of her business, but she was prouder of the fact that she had gotten out of New York to see other things for a little while.

Her thoughts were on Debbie, and wishing she could be here to see this place. But Lou settled into being alone tonight, and enjoying herself the way she’d never been allowed to for the first twenty-one years of her life. 

Someone approached her rather drunkenly and requested, “Oh my gosh, you’re Australian? Can you do the freestyle dance teacher voice?”

Somehow she knew what they were talking about. “ _Hi, I’m Renata Bliss, and I’m your freestyle dance teacher._ "

The person seemed to implode, spilling their drink a little as they thanked her and rushed back to tell their friends. Lou rolled her eyes amicably, still unable to care less, and headed to the back where she’d been directed.

Once she’d relieved herself, eyes glancing around the room as she washed her hands, the door swung open with the entrance of the same performer who’d invited her to stay longer.

“We need you, blondie.”

“Me?”

“You can’t expect to walk in here with cheekbones like that and then just leave.”

Lou was flattered, but a little bumblefucked. “What’s so special - ”

“You ever done drag?”

She dried her hands. “Once in college.”

“We’ve got a spot for you, if you want it. Tonight only.”

Her heart practically fell to the floor. “Like on purpose, or - ”

“You’re our guest. My nephew is doing makeup in the dressing room, if you want to - ”

“Yes,” Lou answered instantly. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do or where the desire came from, but she was feeling the energy of her spontaneous travels. 

The performer took her by the hand with a sparkly smile and they snuck down the torchlit passage to a hot little room that smelled gloriously of hairspray and Gatorade and iced coffee and perfume and the sugar from their sweat. 

She got dizzy for only a moment before letting it seep into her. A few of them greeted her with the kind of smile only Debbie or Tammy had given her in her lifetime, one that said they saw her and truly believed in her as a whole, but imperfect, person.

“My nephew, Jared.”

Lou was introduced to someone much younger than she’d been anticipating - a stunning kid no older than thirteen with eyeshadow that shone like the New York skyline itself. It made her homesick, and again, underdressed.

“Jared. He-him,” the boy said with a smile. extending a bedazzled hand out to her which she took eagerly.

“Lou. Just call me Lou.”

He guided her to sit down and she noticed Jared’s guardian had already disappeared into their own world again, nowhere to be seen with Lou’s unworthy, naked eyes. 

“Where do you want to be when you grow up, Jared?” she asked, striking up conversation as he began working through different palettes and brush cleaners.

He grinned. “Right here.”

It was contagious. “Do you ever perform?”

The boy shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“What’s your song?”

“What kind of look were you thinking?”

Her brow lifted. “Oh, I have no idea, I’m not usually on a stage. Surprise me.”

He seemed excited by the invitation. “Anything by Britney. Or Beyoncé’s Homecoming show.”

“Everyone else should just quit. They don’t stand a chance against you,” she wagered, and Jared giggled.

It was one of those sweet, innocent sounds before puberty took its toll, and she was instantly back on the brown corduroy couch in her childhood home, tickling her little brothers until they threatened to pee themselves. It came with enough pain - their father looming to ruin the fun - but Jared’s precious laugh was worth putting in a time capsule to be cherished and _nothing_ could ruin this moment.

He opened up to her quite quickly as he did her makeup similar to his, and after a few minutes he asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

It took her a second or two to process the answer, but when it slipped from her lips, her heart grew and she felt more confident with the words being suddenly out. She wasn’t the only carrier of the information, and she felt safe enough to share it. “I guess I do.”

“You guess?”

“Well, it’s new. We’ve been friends for more than half of our lives, but only recently did we realize we’d basically been in love for years.”

“I want to know what that feels like.”

His whimsical tone was enough for Lou to want to reach out and hug him tightly, but she knew well enough that she was projecting. She blinked a little when he paused to refresh his brush. “What do you feel when you’re doing makeup?”

“Um,” he thought out loud. “Excited.” He gestured for her to close her eyes again. “Happy. Beautiful. Good.” He shrugged in the exaggerated way that children often do when they get bored of what you’ve asked them. But he still had more to say, so she stayed quiet. “Safe, I guess.”

She smiled and only now noticed how confident his little hand was just under her chin, already a complete professional. She snuck glances at the focus on his face and felt the deep ache for her brothers. The nurturing part of her soul had been so actively exercised for years, and so suddenly cut short for their safety, although it broke all three of their hearts in the process. She wondered where they were at this very moment, and prayed that this little boy had a safe, loving home to return to at the end of the night. Something that she didn’t have until her twenties.

But if he didn’t, she thought, she was thankful that he had his talent and his passion to embrace and to share, to give him happiness and sanctuary even if only for a few hours.

“Like this is the only thing that has ever made me feel like me,” Jared added.

Lou shrugged. “That’s what love feels like. At least the one that I’m feeling.”

His brown eyes glimmered under his mermaid green eyeshadow and there was a moment where nothing more needed to be said between them. He’d finished her look and handed her a mirror.

Her red and his green complimented each other.

“You’ve got a gift, kid. Thank you.”

He swivelled bashfully on his chair, and Lou noticed that his feet barely even touched the floor. But they were in a pair of heels that matched his eyes, and she began to wonder how close she could be to Oz. How much time did she have before she woke up?

“Blondie, what’s your song?” Someone who had to be the stage manager but whose headset didn’t appear to be plugged into anything asked her quickly.

“Uh, I - I don’t - what should I pick?” She asked Jared, trusting in his taste.

Jared jumped out of his seat to whisper in her ear.

She was surprised, but proud, that he knew that song at all. “Alright, you know best.”

She told the stage manager who hurriedly jotted it down and rushed to the next performer.

“How do I look?” Lou asked her makeup artist.

“Like me.” He smiled.

“Which means?” She fished for his answer.

“Like royalty.”

“You got it.” 

They high-fived and he rushed her out and behind the curtains.

“Are you gonna watch? I might get stage fright.”

“I’ve got other clients; I’m a busy man. Break a leg.”

Lou watched him bounce along backstage and she felt her stomach twisting into knots that would be hard to undo later.

“What am I even - ” she muttered to herself, tugging at her clothes. At her leather jacket, t-shirt and jeans. “I’m not dressed for this.”

But the MC alerted the audience of a newcomer, and to Lou’s surprise, only explained that she was from New York, and refrained from any jokes about being ‘down under’. It was only okay when Debbie did it. She missed Debbie. She missed Debbie’s smile. Her laugh. Her everything. 

George Thorogood and the Destroyer’s “Bad to the Bone” started, loud and clear through the speakers, and Lou wondered if she had thrown up a little bit or just lost her mind. The likelihood of both seemed high.

And so she performed. She stepped out in the character she’d always pretended to be in her childhood bedroom, lip syncing just as she’d had years of practice doing, and was immediately welcomed by the wave of hooting and cheers from the multi-layered audience. It was a packed house, and the spotlight was on her alone. Sweat pulsed beneath her skin, refusing to break out, just promising the sanguine adrenaline she needed, and _wanted,_ to get her through this nerve wracking, enlightening, sensational experience.

People swooned over her, admired her, praised her. She loved and hated it all at once.

By the end of it, as she slowly let go of her ultra-sultry persona, the applause hit her like a minesweeper, and she was quick to leave the stage. 

Somehow, in the hot blur of her own eyes, she found her way to the back door and practically consumed the fresh night air, very slowly realizing how long it had been since she’d eaten anything. 

She perhaps was crying for a minute or two before she even noticed the tears, and let them shake her body down to a curled forward heap on the sidewalk.

Lou wondered if this was what Debbie’s anxiety attacks felt like. Her little world was all that existed, the rest of humanity distant and unreal, the sound of her own breathing sporadic and frightening, and her tears coming stronger than she could control. 

It was awfully confusing to her, why she’d wanted this kind of freedom for years, and a second chance to experience the fun she’d had in college, but perhaps it wasn’t the same when there was no one in the audience that she knew by name. Or by heart. 

It was fun to be anonymous, but what seemed to bring her breathing down was the idea of being home, being with someone who knew her. She wouldn’t trade this experience for the world, and it was clearly something she needed, but Lou could only handle so much unfamiliarity and spontaneity when it came to something as traumatic and deeply personal as her sexuality. 

A pair of converse sneakers padded around the corner and Lou looked up to meet their legs.

One of the quiet performers from earlier smiled down at her. “Can I get a ride?”

Lou got to her feet promptly, wiping her tears with her sleeve before the performer handed her a tissue from their purse. They were stripped down now, their colourful wig replaced with their natural hair, flattened from the strain of the cap, but their makeup was still picture perfect. 

“Do you live close?”

“Oh, no, my friend and I are going home together, I just want a ride around the block on your motorcycle.”

Lou sniffled, and laughed. “That might be the gayest shit I’ve ever done.”

“Then you’d better say yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Holly Pearl.”

“Lou.”

They walked leisurely to Lou’s bike and Lou checked her phone on the way. Her spirit calmed when she saw messages.

**DEB:** Are you okay? I just had a dream about you.

She must have been awake.

**LOU:** I’m okay. And I love you.

“Who’s on the other end of your cuffs in New York?”

“Hm? Oh, my best friend. We're romantics like that.” She passed them her spare helmet. “You with anyone?”

They mounted the bike. “My partner and I just got married, actually.”

“Congratulations.” Lou meant it. “Are they here tonight?”

“No, they work nights. But sometimes they come on weekends.”

“That sounds hard. Do you like being married?”

“I love being married. I could only see myself marrying them. It’s just always been them, you know?”

Lou revved the engine. “I do.”

“Can I hold onto you?”

“I strongly advise it, if you don’t want to fall off.”

Holly Pearl clung to Lou for dear life, and they safely slipped out into the glossy LA street, making a clean and refreshing rip around the entire block that had them both reflecting on how small everything else in the world felt when it went whipping past in the night.

They returned safely to the front of the club, and Holly Pearl handed back the spare helmet. 

“That was incredible. Thank you so much.”

“You’re absolutely welcome. You’ll get home safe?”

The shorter of the two Lou had seen earlier ascended the stairs at that moment. “There you are; where’d you go?”

“To the stars, my friend,” Holly Pearl answered. “Take care of yourself, yeah?” They checked in with Lou, who nodded through her helmet.

The blonde waved goodbye and headed off for good this time, with just enough energy to find a hotel for the night.

Once she’d parked, checked in, ridden in an elevator with unsettling reflections of her strangely gorgeous made-up self, she got to her room and checked her phone again.

**DEB:** I love you. Worried about you. 

But thirty minutes had passed, and Lou figured she’d be asleep again by now. Tammy was with her, so she was relieved to know she wasn’t alone.

Instead of calling her, Lou rolled over on her soft hotel bed and recorded a voice memo.

“Hi my love,” she began, not certain where she was going with it, until she knew nothing felt more right. “I’m coming home.”


End file.
